Al-Dafin in medieval Muslim Malta : a characterisation of funerary material culture in Arab and Norman period Malta

Abstract

Medieval Malta was home to a Muslim-majority population for centuries. Consequently, they utilised a cemetery outside their newly refurbished city, Mdina, for a considerably long period of Maltese history. The study of the medieval Muslim burial and funerary culture in Malta is currently wholly based on this same medieval Muslim cemetery at the Domus Romana in Rabat, Malta. This dissertation attempts to relate the past excavations of that medieval Muslim cemeterial context conducted in the last two centuries to an unpublished site in their close vicinity excavated in 2011, known as TSP2011/12. In doing so, primary sources from this new context are presented along with secondary sources which focused on the excavations carried out in the RabatMdina area pertaining to medieval Muslim burials. An attempt is made to focus on two particular burials from TSP2011/12 in trying to relate them to notions of Muslim burial culture which will be explored in this text, along with established research in Muslim mortuary archaeology. The Maltese medieval Muslim context has produced considerable pieces of funerary art in the form of prismatic stelae which are also explored and taken into account when describing the Maltese medieval Muslim cemetery. Through a description and comparison of TSP2011/12 with the excavated contexts of the medieval Muslim burials in and around the Rabat Domus Romana, links could be established in burial typologies. Burials from TSP2011/12 are described through orientation, articulation of skeletal remains, associated artefacts and stratigraphy, including, in a minority of cases, evidence of the use of coffins, which are atypical in Muslim burials. In this study, a comparison with medieval Muslim cemeterial contexts from Monte Iato and Entella in Sicily, along with Kairouan, Tunisia, also gives further context the the Maltese medieval Muslim cemetery.