Malta : an archaeological paradise

Abstract

This book is designed to give an accurate and intelligent account of early Maltese history without the involved details of specialist works. The ancient history of the Maltese islands is in many ways an excellent sample of what has gone on in the past, most of all in the Western half of the Mediterranean. It embraces the vast stretch of time from at least 5000 B.C. to the eclipse of the Roman civilization in the course of the 5th century A.D. Included in this millenia! march of history we come across many of the key happenings that between them compound much of Mediterranean history: the emergence of the first agricultural civilization to spread over the Central Mediterranean; the great - practically unique - flourish of temple-building, some temples even ante-dating the Giza pyramids; the diffusion of the first metal technologies; the trading and colonization of the Phoenicians, the first to build an "empire" embracing different portions of the Mediterranean lands; the rise of the Carthaginian power in North Africa, soon challenged and destroyed by Roman might and superior organization; and the advent of Christianity, leaving in the rock-cut hypogea the earliest testimony of its appeal.