Religion : a perspective into Gozo's mystery

Abstract

Gozo is deceptively tiny for its history. Though for the most part its history is still shrouded in mystery, it is so evident and so compelling that Gozo's past is a larger than life story of an island steeped in the events, cultures and civilizations of the Mediterranean wherein it has floated since the last ice age tied, together with its elder sister and the other smaller islands, by invisible umbilical links to the southern European continent to its north and northern Africa to its south. Having its own story to tell does not mean that Gozo may at any point in time be seen as isolated from the other island of Malta or, indeed, that of the Mediterranean. Gozo's history is substantially patterned on that of Malta and its vicissitudes are essentially woven with those of Malta. Nevertheless archeologists and historians converge with geologists, zoologists and botanists on the view that Gozo "has a personality which is quite distinct from that of Malta" (Blouet 1963: 127). Scholars of classical epigraphy, medievalists and anthropologists are not of a different mind as to the cultural identity of the island.