Towns and Villages in Malta and Gozo a four-part series by Charles Fiott (EXCERPTS) Book Two: The South Portraits of 21 towns and villages in the southern part of Malta. Table of Contents Luqa Santa Lucija Tarxien Fgura Xghajra Zabbar Wied Il-Ghajn Zejtun Marsaxlokk Birzebbuga Ghaxaq Gudja Kirkop Safi Zurrieq Qrendi Mqabba Siggiewi Dingli Zebbug Qormi LUQA (...) Luqa is also very close to the Mediterranean, a fact easily forgotten in these days of three-storey buildings and industrial estates. But the sea must have been a common sight when the motto Oras Prospicio (I look over the sea) was originated. The village's coat of arms is also connected with the waters. It displays the cross of St. Andrew, patron saint of fishermen. (...) The parish church of St. Andrew dominates the village square. Started in 1634, the year Luqa was declared a parish, it was built around an older one dedicated to the same saint. This Doric masterpiece by Tumas Dingli houses several works of art, among them the titular painting by Mattia Preti (1687). The devotion to St.Andrew was enhanced in 1715 when a relic of the saint was brought from Italy to be taken out in the annual procession. In 1777 band music was added to the procession and in 1781 the relic was replaced by a statue of St. Andrew holding a diagonal cross, symbol of his martyrdom. Thus the annual procession slowly developed into the crowd-pleasing festa that is so popular today. (...)   [GO BACK TO THE TABLE OF CONTENTS] SANTA LUCIJA (...) It was in the mid-fifties when the controversial decision was made to recycle some of the best farmland in the southern plains into a housing estate. And the opportunities that were lost were not just agrarian. As is almost inevitable in archaeologically rich Malta, the digging reached into prehistory, striking at unprotected tombs. Only in 1995, much to the credit of the newly created local council, were steps taken to restore a surviving tomb. Also levelled without much ado was Fort St. James. (...) The reason for the location of the new town was its proximity to the dockyard area, the largest employment centre of Malta. It was designed to take in those willing to move a few miles away from the congested harbour area and from their families. In traditional Malta, where the family structure is so closely knit to the village of birth, it was an experiment with less than a fifty-fifty chance of succeeding. But succeed it did, with one neighbourhood following another. What started out as a little section of Tarxien quickly became a town on its own and received its official name in 1961, just one year after the first residents moved in. (...) [GO BACK TO THE TABLE OF CONTENTS] TARXIEN (...) One of about two dozen known prehistoric temple sites on the islands, the Tarxien Temples give rise to what some archaeologists call the Tarxien Phase, a copper age culture which lasted 500-800 years and ended around 2500 BC. Compared with other temple sites in Malta and Gozo, this one is neither very large nor very old. But while others regale us with two or even three temples, Tarxien is the only one with four. Besides, the size of the stone idols and the complexity of the decorative motifs suggest that Tarxien (tar-shin) was the centre of Maltese civilization at the time... ... Some four hundred years after the building of the last temple, a bronze age culture identified as Tarxien Cemetery (2300-1450 BC) arrived on the site. This culture added decorations such as shark teeth and Noah's ark shells. The Cemetery People cremated their dead here and used flint knives to sacrifice goats, pigs, and sheep. (...) ...Tarxien continued to be an important village throughout the Roman period, as evidenced by the several Roman tombs and wells that have been discovered. The Romans even used the Tarxien Temples, where at least one wall and one cistern survive within the much older sanctuary. But after that the temples went into a long hibernation which lasted till 1913, when a farmer's plough picked on them. (...) [GO BACK TO THE TABLE OF CONTENTS] FGURA On the surface Fgura seems to be a brand new town. Established only in the late sixties, after being made a parish in 1965, it is assembled primarily with the excess population of surrounding towns. Its northern borders are defined by the Kottonera Lines, which were built to protect the three cities (Birgu, Bormla and Isla) and which now limit their growth. On the other fronts, Fgura blends more freely with Zabbar (east), Rahal Gdid (west), and Tarxien (south). With the exception of Zabbar, Fgura's population has already exceeded that of every town around it. (...) But Fgura is as ancient as it is new. With its neighbours, it shared a curious prehistoric age. Ptolemy wrote of a 5th century BC town called Chersonesos. The Greek name means "peninsula" and the best guess for the location of this town is somewhere in the Kottonera area. Burial within city limits was not practised, hence the prehistoric tombs found at Ghajn Dwieli in northern Rahal Gdid and tal-Liedna in Fgura. A corruption of figura (image), the town's name reminds one of a revered niche that was turned into a small church in 1790 (rebuilt 1844). On July 10, 1940, exactly a month after Italy declared war and started raiding Malta, the church was hit. An Ecce Homo statue was destroyed, bar the head, which was left peeking out of a hole caused by a shrapnel. To passers-by there could be only one meaning for the image of Jesus gazing at the sky: Our Lord himself was imploring peace from heaven. (...)   [GO BACK TO THE TABLE OF CONTENTS]

---

We would like to thank Mr. Charles Fiott for granting us permission to publish the above excerpts.

Copyright © 1996 Charles Fiott - All Rights Reserved -
Towns and Villages in Malta and Gozo

Part 2: The South (Portraits of 21 towns and villages in the souhern part of Malta)

Published by the Conventual Franciscans of Rabat (Religjon u Hajja), Malta - 1994

---

Page Layout and Side Bars
Copyright © 1998 Michael Riccioli All Rights Reserved

[TABLE OF CONTENTS]
[THE GEORGE CROSS ISLAND]
[BACK TO ESP-EFL BRITISH CIVILISATION HOME PAGE]