No abstract

Small islands have a need for a myth of national identity. The small Central Mediterranean archipelago of Malta, geographically located on the respective peripheries of Muslim North Africa and Christian Europe, has since the Late Middle Ages used the claim to be the site of the shipwreck of the apostle Paul in A.D. 60 (Acts 28) as a key argument for a Latin European identity. The fact that the islands had emerged from a traumatic Muslim experience made it psychologically imperative for them to trace their Christian roots to apostolic times. This study examines the validity of their claims and discusses the earliest known evidence for a Pauline tradition.

No abstract

The Roman city of Melite, on the central Mediterranean archipelago of Malta, had, in common with other provincial outposts of the Empire, a diaspora Jewish colony for which there is testimony in six hypogea that prominently display the seven-branched Menorah. There is apparent evidence for a religious, and perhaps administrative, set-up in a Greek inscription that marks the burial place of a gerousiarch and lover of the 'commandments' who could have been the head of a Council of Elders in the synagogue of the city, and of his wife, Eulogia 'the Elder'. The title presbytera used in the text has a special significance and suggests that husband and wife held prestigious posts in the running of the colony. A second inscription incorporates the sevenbranched Menorah and commemorates another woman, named Dionisia, who was known by the ritualistic name 'Irene'. Two other texts appear to be simple farewell messages but are of interest because they are accompanied by a stylized painted Menorah and a boldly incised sailing vessel that has the appearance of a Roman ship. The paper takes a close look at these and other archaeological material related to Jewish presence and influence in Malta. The hypogea are discussed in the context of the Maltese culture of rock-cut burials, starting in the prehistoric period and finding special significance as the prototype influence on the Romano-Punic tomb.The Maltese archipelago occupies an area of c 316sq km and owes its importance in history to its strategic location in the centre of the Mediterranean, 93km south of Sicily and 288km east of Tunisia (fig 1). The culture of rock-cut tombs has a long history in these islands, dating from the prehistoric period. 1 The digging of underground burial places was facilitated by the availability of a malleable limestone that is easy to quarry and work. The most famous subterranean cemetery is the Hal Saflieni Hypogeum, a World Heritage Site, which dates to the Temple Period of the prehistoric sequence. 2 The Phoenicians, who established firm contact with the islands in the first millennium BC, 3 brought with them a typology of shaft-and-chamber tombs (fig 2) which reflected the Levantine influence that characterized the west Mediterranean in general, and Malta in particular, from around 900 BC to about the second century AD. 4 The late Roman, early Christian and Jewish hypogea of Malta are a development of their layout and architectural and stylistic idiosyncrasies and, to a marked extent, an elaboration of their tomb typologies (fig 3). 5 1. Starting from around the 4th millennium BC. In spite of more recent adjustments, the best survey of Maltese prehistory remains Evans 1971.

No abstract