Phoenician/Punic Malta

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The Phoenicians were a seafaring race living along the Levantine coast and sailing beyond the boundaries of the known world. Though they invented writing, they left no written accounts of themselves so it is thanks to pottery remains and the breaking of the code on Malta’s ‘cippus’ that we know more about these shadowy people.

Natural disasters took place at the end of the Bronze Age – Herodotus records a great famine causing major migrations. Finding themselves squeezed between the Hebrews and the sea, Phoenician communities migrated to nearby Cyprus and then to the Aegean Islands. Between 1000 and 800 BC they reached Spain where they mined tin, silver and iron. There was both a northern and a southern route and Malta lay on the path of both.

Originally, the Phoenicians were traders with little interest in establishing colonies, but due to its fine harbours, central location and plentiful supplies, Malta is thought to have already been settled, with an aristocratic ruling class, well before their largest city, Carthage in Tunisia, was set up.

Very few remains of that period survives, however archaeological indicates that in the early years of the settlement Malta was home to an elite, prosperous community rich enough to have elaborate burials with sarcophagi, rock-cut chamber tombs and valuable items for decoration or use.

Significantly these remains include almost the full range of vessels used for wine drinking at the time: large transport amphorae, fine Aegean cups, tripod mortar, pear-shaped flasks and a dipper juglet. In addition, clear signs of wealth were present in the wide proportions of the rock-cut tomb, a bed-like platform or bier for the dead, imported bronze and silver jewellery, a Cypriot bronze tripod lamp support and iron rings that are remnants perhaps of wooden furniture.

Pottery remains showing the craftsmanship of the Bronze Age people combined with the new skills brought by the new Phoenician arrivals indicate that the two communities lived peacefully together. When the Assyrians and Babylonians weakened the Phoenician city states, power shifted to their greatest colony, Punic Carthage, continuing the Phoenician legacy. The transition between Phoenician and Punic cultures in Malta was also peaceful, providing a Phoenician-Punic cultural continuity that may be unmatched in the Mediterranean lands that they touched.

While no Phoenician written accounts of their presence here survive, the quality and range of pottery remains found in Malta from sources across the Mediterranean, portray a vibrant trading centre. The National Museum of Archaeology in Valletta has many Phoenician/Punic items, including gold and silver amulets which have a marked Egyptian influence. Seven clay coffins were also found (of which only one remains), as well as coins found in the vicinity of Rabat.

Most Punic structures are the tombs found around the Rabat area from Mtarfa to Ghajn Qatet, as well at Tas-Silg in the south and at Ras il-Wardija in Gozo, however the outstanding structure from Punic times is a tower, built without mortar, that still stands in the garden of the Zurrieq archpriest’s house.

At Tas-Silg, Bronze Age remains are followed by late Punic (or Carthaginian) tombs from the fourth century BC, the temple saw a major building programme being undertaken involving the construction of porticos and an enormous courtyard. The Romans further developed the Punic temple, which was to become a church under the Byzantines.

The most important Phoenician legacy in Malta is literacy: Malta became literate with the arrival of the Phoenicians who developed the first alphabet. It was through the famous Phoenician cippi ornamental pillars, one of which was sent to Louis XVI as a present, that the Phoenician language was finally deciphered. It is also thought that the Maltese spoke Phoenician for some 700 years, through the Roman period until the arrival of the Arabs; some scholars maintain that certain elements of Maltese are more similar to language used in the Lebanon area than in North Africa.

Most importantly, under the Phoenicians Malta passed from prehistory to history proper. They stayed on in Malta officially till 218BC, but culturally well beyond that.