NO.122
T H E T R U S T Y S E RVA N T
soils, land snails and pollen, as well as
studies of the remains of humans who
lived in the landscapes, are answering
questions about the fragility, sustainability
and ultimately the collapse of the society
that created the impressive monuments.
In fact, the challenges of the small island
world of Malta in prehistory, a mere
318km2 in size, can be compared to the
challenges faced by our world today. On
ancient Malta, we can recognise many of
the salient issues of the modern earth in
the deforestation and erosion, the physical
toll on human bodies, the restricted
resources and the tentative responses by
the human populations of that distant
time. However, whereas the prehistoric
inhabitants of Malta had the maritime
technology to escape their island home,
the modern inhabitants of our world have
yet to develop the space technology to
leave our globe on a sufficient scale that
would ensure long-term survival.
A view down onto the Roman villa excavated by Ashby in Ramla Bay, Gozo (Malta), c. 1910.
The current FRAGSUS project (PI
Caroline Malone Queen’s Belfast),
supported by the European Research
Council, can be explored on a number of
websites listed here:
General view of the Santa Verna excavation, 1911.
Our work team adopted the same hats as the workers of the early 1900s.
9
www.arch.cam.ac.uk/research/projects/fragsus.
The photos are reproduced by kind
permission of the British School at Rome
and I would like to thank Alessandra
Giovenco for the preparation of the
images.
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The main trench excavated by Ashby, 1911, and
identified in the 2015 excavation.