Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/27886
Title: The Mediterranean Islands as places of synthesis between Arab culture and European cultures
Authors: Cassar Pullicino, Guze
Keywords: Maltese language -- Foreign elements
Islands -- Colonial influence
Issue Date: 1979
Publisher: University of Malta
Citation: Cassar Pullicino, G. (1979). The Mediterranean Islands as places of synthesis between Arab culture and European cultures. Journal of Maltese Studies, 13, 17-42.
Abstract: Since the earliest times the Mediterranean h as been the meeting place of different, often diverse and rival cultures. S. Moscati has shown that recent archaeological research in the central Mediterranean area bounded by Tunisia to the South and Italy to the North revealed that certain islands, such as Malta, Sicily (Motya) and Sardinia, played an important role in a process of cultural interaction in ancient Mediterranean history. These islands served as crossroads where ancient cultures met or followed one another in time. Sometimes, as in the case of Malta, a succession of civilizations imposed themselves on previous ones over a period of some three thousand years, the component elements being prehistoric, Phoenician-Punic, Hellenistic-Roman and Christian. It is evident, therefore, that these islands have been the scene of cultural synthesis well before the emergence of the Arabs as a power in the Mediterranean. Therefore, the theme of the article concerns the interplay and fusion, in the Mediterranean islands, of the Arab culture and the European cultures.
Description: Working Paper, with particular reference to Malta, discussed at the Conference on the same theme held at the Grand Hotel Verdala (11-14 September, 1978) on the joint initiative of the Tunisian and Maltese National Commissions for UNESCO.
URI: https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar//handle/123456789/27886
Appears in Collections:JMS, Volume 13
JMS, Volume 13



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