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dc.date.accessioned2016-03-30T08:43:19Z-
dc.date.available2016-03-30T08:43:19Z-
dc.date.issued2002-
dc.identifier.citationInscribed landscapes : marking and making place / edited by Bruna David and Meredith Wilson. U.S.: University of Hawai’i Press, 2002. p. 176-186. 0824824725en_GB
dc.identifier.urihttps://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar//handle/123456789/9220-
dc.descriptionChapter 12en_GB
dc.description.abstractThe Maltese Islands, located to the south of Sicily in the central Mediterranean, provide a fine and relatively well preserved example of pre-Historic landscape inscription. The islands are rich in monumental architecture, including temples, megaliths, mortuary complexes, terraces, enclosures, and domestic structures. But these have not remained constant over time: major changes in monument building have taken place over the millennia, implying changes in social, political, and religious life. In this chapter I explore these architectural changes and their broader social implications. Constructional conditions in the Maltese Islands were favorable for long-term archaeological survival: the geology of the Maltese Islands presented local communities with major stone resources for building and rebuilding. This comprised substantially two types of building material: soft Globigerina limestone suitable for architectural embellishment, and a coralline limestone suitable for more solid blocks and infill. Other, more fragile forms of constructional material, such as wood, were less readily available and consequently played a lesser role in monumental architecture. Creative conditions were also favorable. Island conditions conspired to produce a cycle of complexity in the treatment of the built environment and a subsequent cycle of reinterpretation of that built environment. A period of agricultural colonization and consolidation (ca. 5500-4100 B.C.E.) was followed by a phase of ritualization (ca. 4100-2500 B.C.E.) and, in turn, by a radical reworking of the material remains of that ritualization (ca. 2500-800 B.C.E.) until the process was truncated by the intervention of Phoenician influence (Stoddart 1999a). The Maltese Islands thus constitute a good case study for the consideration of some current approaches to material display, inscribed in landscapes. They provide a palimpsest of inscriptions and reinscriptions where traces of the previous landscape can provide an important foundation for the new. This, in essence, is the force of inscription.en_GB
dc.language.isoenen_GB
dc.publisherUniversity of Hawai’i Pressen_GB
dc.rightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/restrictedAccessen_GB
dc.subjectMalta -- Antiquitiesen_GB
dc.subjectHuman geography -- Maltaen_GB
dc.subjectInscriptions -- Maltaen_GB
dc.subjectMegalithic monuments -- Maltaen_GB
dc.titleMonuments in the pre-historic landscape of the Maltese Islands : ritual and domestic transformationsen_GB
dc.typebookParten_GB
dc.rights.holderThe copyright of this work belongs to the author(s)/publisher. The rights of this work are as defined by the appropriate Copyright Legislation or as modified by any successive legislation. Users may access this work and can make use of the information contained in accordance with the Copyright Legislation provided that the author must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the prior permission of the copyright holder.en_GB
dc.description.reviewedN/Aen_GB
dc.contributor.creatorStoddart, Simon-
Appears in Collections:Melitensia Works - ERCWHMlt

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