Gozo

Over to Gozo. It's noticeable that the familiar 3-chambered temple/nuraghi design we have seen in Sardinia and at Skorba (and extended at Ta Hagrat) was further developed at Xhagra - here, the two buildings, side by side, have five and four room-sized niches. Some of these at least had shelves or tables, and parts of the floor are still equipped with splendid flooring, paved with smooth stones.  No signs of any passages inside the walls, let alone staircases to take you up to a viewing point or rooftop. The roofs have completely gone.... speculation is that these were timber or plant-based. 

    

The corbelling of the wall-to-ceiling is as good as any we’ve seen, though at Xhagra there is some corbelling on the outside of one of the buildings, which the authorities have taken to be a sign of instability… it’s propped up with scaffolding, but it looks pretty intentional to me. The question would be, was there another room out there? Seems unlikely. I don’t know!

Here they found such treasures, in the late 20th century digs - stone-age pottery with inscribed designs such as this bird - maybe a Northern Lapwing.  And many fat ladies, and seated figures, and bowls, and beads and so on.  (The earlier digs, throughout the 19th century were so badly done that most of what was found has been lost, destroyed, eroded, or somehow vanished. Some excellent drawings and watercolours remain, which they've used to reconstruct the extant displays). 

Initial disappointment that the museum shop at Xhagra had been closed for health reasons (‘we’ve come all this way! I want to buy some replica goddesses!’) was later assuaged by finding the archaeology museum in Victoria’s amazing Cittadella open, and with similar figurines for sale. Phew!   Sadly, I could not see a replica of the remarkable little temple-model which was found at Hagrat. That throws light on the whole culture of building huge expensive difficult structures in the stone age, before alphabets.  How on earth did they do it? 

I am feeling a bit twitchy about the curtailed nature of the explanations at all these places. No mention of birth-giving and its perils, in other words, life!  They focus on the burials and later cremations and say it was a centre for a death cult. No understanding of the spirals, which are cyclical symbols - about fertility and divine or magic femininity.  No overt mention of the lack of weapons. Barely a thought for the female half of society… even though there are these dozens and dozens of female figurines, and even then they say some of them could be male. No mention of astronomical alignments - solstices etc.  They talk about the landscape, the location being chosen for its usefulness - access to fresh water, good land - but without any sense of any interaction between the powers and rituals of the ‘temple’ and its influence in that landscape…. The site of Xhagra is pretty good, on a southish-facing slope, with a view of hills and valleys, and the sea and Malta.  A place for renewal and hope, extending benevolence over a whole visible district.   The tone of all the interpretations is dry, dull, obvious, practical, modern.  

One object in the visitor centre stood out to me: the skull of a young woman which was used by scholars at the University of Dundee for a reconstruction. She emerges as a beautiful - almost instantly recognisable person. It’s a triumph of anatomical creativity… but the main thing is her actual teeth! They are perfect, shining, unblemished.  Whatever she ate, she had no caries.  Would that mine were like that.

  

By the way, the Cittadella at Victoria (Gozo’s capital) is a mini-city on the hill top a bit like a sunny Gormenghast, with fantastic buildings of many eras, another place which UNESCO has its eye on.  In 1551 when the Turks overran the island, people only escaped enslavement by shimmying down a huge terrifying wall and cliff to escape. Agh! Lots of museum-y bits were closed, but it’s so extensive and attractive we didn’t mind. 

I will make a note about how we go about, in our little hired car. It is a blessing to us fuddy-duddies to be driving on the left. We stop for lunch out wherever we are, and find the menus tempting - quite Italian in influence with pasta and pizza as well as Maltese specialities such as rabbit and fish.  The portions are huge!  We come home to have (if anything) a picnic style light supper.   We failed to buy milk from a supermarket yesterday as there were long queues to get IN!  You're only allowed in if someone comes out.  The panic and generalised mob reaction to the coronavirus is unsettling.  Who knew that there was a world-wide preoccupation with bum-wiping? (I thought it was just me). The ferry to and from Gozo is quick and efficient - you only pay coming back to Malta.