https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/45135 2026-05-07T13:44:34Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/45219 Title: Folklore of Gozo - a description Authors: Mifsud Chircop, Marlene Abstract: The major attraction for the visitor lies in the diversity of the landscapes which include undulating hills and rocky crags, fertile valleys which make the island decidedly greener than Malta, a tapering volcano-like cone, underground caverns of stalactites and stalagmites, bays and harbours. Villages crest the eminences and all the roads lead to the capital city of Rabat (Victoria), grown from a suburb of the Citadel. It is against this background that the folklore of Gozo is set. This article and its illustrations will, we hope, provide an understanding of its many aspects. This island has been inhabited by prehistoric man. The first settlers have hewn and exploited the land, erecting temples, such as the one at Ggantija and around which has evolved the legend of a gigantic race of people, a special kind of builders who have found a place in our folklore. Description: This document contains a General index and an Analytical index. 1990-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/45215 Title: The built environment in Gozo : a historical review Authors: De Lucca, Denis Abstract: The history of the making of buildings and of combining these buildings into compact human settlements of a fortified or unfortified nature is a fascinating subject, more so when the environment concerned is that of a small Mediterranean island composed of sedimentary rocks which since time immemorial have provided the main building material which was creatively used by the inhabitants and their architects to produce architecture. The scope of the present contribution is to introduce the reader to the architecture of Gozo seen as history arrested in stone, as the slow movement of time congealed in such a way that at every point a particular form of building, a particular type of settlement pattern expressed the needs and the character of its age. Considered from this angle, one can define the primary purpose of this contribution as being that to gain an understanding of the architecture of Gozo as it relates to the geography of the island and the history of its people - in short, a documentation of how various types of buildings and settlements in Gozo have historically arisen and, sometimes, disappeared into oblivion as a direct response to particular geographic, social, political and economic conditions. 1990-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/45210 Title: The archaeology of Gozo : from prehistoric to Arab times Authors: Bonanno, Anthony Abstract: Of the 50,000 years of Man's existence in his present form of physical evolution - that of Homo Sapiens Sapiens - only the last 7000 years can be accounted for archaeologically on the island of Gozo. His first presence on the island is not evidenced before 5000 B.C., that is, not before he learnt to grow his own food and to construct sea-craft that was reliable enough to allow him to brave large tracts of open sea; even though there were long periods of time, each of thousands of years, namely during the Ice Ages, when Gozo, together with the rest of the Maltese archipelago, was physically connected by land to the European continent as a result of drastic falls in sea levels. Description: This document contains the Table of Contents, a Presentation by Giulio Andreotti, and an Introduction by Fr. Charles Cini. 1990-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/45140 Title: The history of Gozo from the early middle ages to modern time Authors: Wettinger, Godfrey Abstract: Though hardly twenty six square miles in area, the little island of Gozo, some four miles to the north-west of Malta, has its own particular history to boast of, parallel to that of Malta and that of Sicily but not so identical that it has not had its own individual story to tell. 1 In general outline, one might certainly think that there was little to differentiate the history of the two main Maltese islands. They normally changed foreign domination in the same way and pretty much at the same time, Arabs following Byzantines, Normans that of the former, then the Suabians, the Angevins, the Aragonese, the Order of St. John of Jerusalem or Rhodes, the French, the British and finally independence. 2 The main geographical factors influencing one have influenced the other, whether climatological, telluric or geopolitical. In broad outline the main cultural currents influencing both islands have been the same. For most practical purposes, consequently, there is little to distinguish culturally a Gozitan person from a Maltese one. 1990-01-01T00:00:00Z