Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/15917
Title: Man - Land relations in temple period Gozo
Authors: Vella, Godwin
Keywords: Megalithic temples -- Malta -- Gozo
Agriculture, Prehistoric -- Malta -- Gozo
Issue Date: 2006-06
Publisher: University of Malta. Gozo Centre
Citation: Vella, G. (2006). Man - Land relations in temple period Gozo. The Gozo Observer, 14, 3-7.
Abstract: The huge investment required for the erection and eventual running of the Maltese megalithic complexes highlights their central role in the temple builders’ communal life. Their construction and layout qualify them as theatres for ceremonial and ritual deeds for the invocation of supernatural forces, namely some form of being or beings related to fertility and the regeneration of life. In this respect, the said temples must have had a strong link with agriculture, the backbone of the temple builders’ subsistence economy, to the extent that their location seems to have been dictated by the footprint of the most favorable crop-cultivation plains in the Maltese Islands. This distribution pattern is particularly evident in Gozo, where besides the well-known and imposing twin temple complex of Ġgantija, one comes across several more contemporaneous sites, including five more temple ruins, two settlements, and a hypogeum. These sites are all sitting within or along the perimeter of the fertile and vast plain extending from Rabat to Għajnsielem.
URI: https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar//handle/123456789/15917
Appears in Collections:The Gozo Observer - Issue 14, June 2006
The Gozo Observer - Issue 14, June 2006

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