Food offerings and meal consumption played an essential role in ritual practices, as those documented in the long history of the sanctuary of Tas-Silg . in Malta, devoted to the Phoenician goddess Astarte, later identified with Hera/Juno. The research aims to investigate the role of ceramic containers in the ritual activities, starting from the morphological and typological classification of the pottery assemblages used for the preparation and consumption of ritual meals between the 5th and the 1st century BC. This work investigates the functional aspects of different categories of containers along with their stylistic features, providing an overview of the most common functional shapes in order to highlight specific behaviors and useful data for the reconstruction of the ritual activities carried out in the sanctuary. In addition, lipid residue analysis has been applied on a selection of pottery samples, allowing identifying the nature of the foodstuffs offered and consumed during the rituals.
Identifying rituals in Punic Malta: the pottery assemblages from the sanctuary of Tas Silġ
F. Notarstefano
2026-01-01
Abstract
Food offerings and meal consumption played an essential role in ritual practices, as those documented in the long history of the sanctuary of Tas-Silg . in Malta, devoted to the Phoenician goddess Astarte, later identified with Hera/Juno. The research aims to investigate the role of ceramic containers in the ritual activities, starting from the morphological and typological classification of the pottery assemblages used for the preparation and consumption of ritual meals between the 5th and the 1st century BC. This work investigates the functional aspects of different categories of containers along with their stylistic features, providing an overview of the most common functional shapes in order to highlight specific behaviors and useful data for the reconstruction of the ritual activities carried out in the sanctuary. In addition, lipid residue analysis has been applied on a selection of pottery samples, allowing identifying the nature of the foodstuffs offered and consumed during the rituals.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
