The cart-ruts on Malta and Gozo

Abstract

The mystery of the cart-ruts in solid rock on Malta and Gozo has baffled archaeologists for the past eighty years. For centuries it aroused the curiosity of foreign visitors to the islands. More recently it has provoked several writers to preposterous flights of fancy in their search for a solution. Now two amateurs have evolved a solution which is based on a combination of archaeological, geological and historical facts - though neither of them claims to be expert in any of those disciplines - plus a keen observation of a mass of detail on the ground, a realistic appreciation of the situation in all its aspects, and a common-sense approach to what is, in effect, not a mystery at all, but a fascinating historical fact. If this is not the definitive solution - and the authors do not claim it as such - then it is the nearest that anyone has ever come, or is ever likely to come, to a definite solution.