A PUNIC JUG FROM THE MUSEUM OF ST AGATHA, RABAT, MALTA: A GLANCE AT PUNIC EVERYDAY LIFE

Summary. The assumption of a long-term overlapping or co-existence of cultures there has been confirmed by a very small inscription which came to my attention during research for my doctoral thesis 'From Expansion to Isolation. A study on the development of the Phoenician–Punic culture on the islands of Malta and Gozo'. Pottery chronology and the use of epigraphy and palaeography illustrate that at a time when Malta and Gozo had long been under Roman rule, the harmonious co-existence of the Punic, Greek and Roman cultures was manifested in one vessel and in one inscription. The Maltese archipelago assumes a special status owing to its isolation. There is hardly any comparable area of 246 sq km in which the phenomenon of cultural overlapping and cultural parallels can be found in such density.