The finds : (i) the pottery

Abstract

One of the main reasons for undertaking the excavations at Ħal Millieri was the prospect that the site would provide a sequence of the medieval pottery in Malta, of which almost nothing was known from securely stratified archaeological contexts. Apart from the lack of medieval excavations, one of the problems presented by the thin soil of Malta is the disturbance of archaeological stratigraphy by the practice of removing earth and the pottery it contains from one field and spreading it in another. Beneath a church such as that of the Annunciation, in existence by the second half of the fifteenth century, it was likely that the stratigraphy would be free from disturbance by cultivation, post-medieval building activities and soil removal. This expectation was fulfilled. Two fixed points in the relative dating of the site are provided by the pavement of the present church of the Annunciation and the torba floor of its predecessor. Some stratification was also found beneath the pavement of the church of the Visitation, though these layers were only partially explored.