National pipe summary : Malta

Abstract

Geographically and politically Malta had a pivotal position in the Mediterranean. The Order of St. John of Jerusalem acquired the islands in 1530. In 1798 Napoleon occupied the island with the connivance of the local population, Following his defeat, Malta effectively became a UK protectorate until independence in 1974. On Malta there was never a clay pipe factory as such, although residents were both users and traders in tobacco. Ottoman-style socketed pipes - chibouks or reed pipes (Maltese pip tal-qasba) - from Greece or the Balkans dominate the assemblages from the seventeenth century onwards; western European products figure increasingly at later dates.