The date of the skeletal remains at Żejtun

Abstract

What is now known of the circumstances of the successive discoveries of the bones in St. Gregory's church at Żejtun in 1896, in 1909 and finally in 1969 depends on the accounts of the sacristan Mr. John Mary Debono, on the published article and photograph of the discovery, and on subsequent writings. The precise arrangement of the bones, which apparently had already been disturbed before 1969, and of the blocking up of the walls cannot now be reconstructed. Recent investigations show that there were bones from over 87 individuals but only some 36 or more skulls and a few fingers; there were also some animal bones.3 These observations make it evident that theories involving individuals taking refuge from a Turkish raid by rushing into a place of refuge, the hiding away of plague corpses and so forth, are all out of the question, and that existing interpretations should now be discarded.