Rural sites in Northwest Malta: results of the Belgo-Maltese survey project

This poster presentation offers results of a joint survey project in the northwest of Malta with finds ranging from the Prehistoric till the Early Modern period. The project is a trilateral endeavour of the Department of Archaeology of Ghent University (Belgium), the University of Malta and the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage (Malta) since 2008. It is an intensive systematic field-walking survey in a kilometre-wide transect, beyond the main Phoenician and Punic urban centre on the island, the present-day Rabat/Mdina. It is interdisciplinary, involving not only archaeologists, but also ceramic specialists, geophysicists, geomatic specialists / topographers and geomorphologists. Three permanently inhabited sites were encountered dating to at least the late 6th or early 5th century BCE, with a clearer attestation in the Hellenistic/Roman period and Late Antique periods. The resulting reconstructed settlement pattern of the Phoenician/Punic period suggests a managed landscape that seems to be a good reflexion of what is happening in North Africa and elsewhere in the central and western Mediterranean. At least from the Roman period on, these sites seem to have specialised on the production of olive oil. The poster presentation focuses upon the major site in the survey transect, the Ġebel Għawzara site.