19 research outputs found
Erich Becker and Malta Sotteranea - exposing the achievements of a dark horse of Christian archaeology
Becker's 1913 publication Malta Sotterranea,
Studien zur altchristlichen und jiidischen
Sepulkralkunst- studies of Malta's early Christian
and Jewish sepulchral art- is a work often quoted
and sometimes even copied by authors writing on
Malta's catacombs and Late Antiquity. Its value was
recognised by many scholars, but to date very few
have managed to fully grasp and understand it.
Certainly, one does not need to understand much
German to realise that his study was exceptionally
thorough and methodical. But one needs to master
German and German grammar perfectly in order to
follow his line of reasoning - which is why many
remarkable conclusions and discoveries in Malta
Sotterranea were at best ignored, or at worst
wrongly quoted or totally misunderstood. Ironically,
it is thanks to the latter that his book never slipped
into oblivion.peer-reviewe
Excavations at Tas-Silg, Malta : a preliminary report on the 1996-1998 campaigns conducted by the Department of Classics and Archaeology of the University of Malta
The area known as Tas-Silg is situated in the south-eastern part of the island of Malta, close to
Marsaxlokk harbour. In reality the place name refers to the small church
dedicated to Our Lady of the Snows (hence Tas-Silg) situated at the point where the narrow ·
road from Zejtun forks out in two directions: to Delimara and Xrobb il-Ghagin due south-east
and to Marsaxlokk village due south-west. A British-period fort occupying the highest point
of the elongated hill further south along· the first road also carries the same place name. The
lower and more compact hill on which the excavations have been conducted is called 'Ta'
Berikka' , but since it is so close to the above-mentioned church (only 50 m to the north) the
tradition of calling it Tas-Silg is now well established and there is no sense in changing it.
The site has a commanding view of the Marsaxlokk harbour to the south and overlooks two
other bays, Marsascala and St Thomas's bay, to the north-east. On all sides the slope is broken
up by man-made terraced fields
There is no doubt that the topography of the site must have been a determining factor in its
choice for the establishment of a religious centre in the Temple period of Maltese pehistory
(3000--2500 BC), though one must keep in mind that close to Tas-Silg there are three other
prehistoric temple sites. each one with a completely different topography. The Temple people
were quite introverted in their cultural isolation and do not seem to have been much interested
in seafaring and in the outside world. The situation changed radically in the following age, the
Bronze Age. when the island was occupied by people who set up villages on naturally defensible hilltops, occasionally fortifying them with artificial ramparts. The Tas-Silg hill
with its temple ruins was occupied by these people, but it is not as yet clear for what purpose.
The scenario changed again in historical times when the central and western Mediterranean
started to be parcelled out among the commercial powers originating in the eastern
Mediterranean. The Greeks do not seem to have even tried 10 colonize Malta as they did in
neighbouring Sicily. The Phoenicians, however, did occupy the island, apparently through a
slow process of peaceful penetration and eventual political and cultural assimi lation. It was in
this period that the ruins of the megalithic temple were transformed into a Phoenician extraurban
shrine dedicated to Astarte, which in time expanded into a full y-fledged sanctuary with
an international reputation. The last chapter in the millennia- long history of the site was
written when the colonnaded courtyard in front of the old temple was transformed into an
early Christian church. Any use made of the site in the following Arab period is, once again,
poorly understood.peer-reviewe
Ghajn Klieb, (Rabat, Malta)
Between October and December 1999 a team of local
and foreign undergraduates from the University of Malta
carried out a survey of the site at Ghajn Klieb outside
Rabat. The exercise constituted the practical part of a
unit on the Principles of Archaeological Surveying
directed by Dr Nicholas Vella of the Department of
Classics & Archaeology. For the survey the team was
joined by Hanna Stager, a graduate of the same
department, who also researched some of the references
used in this article. Initial reconnaissance of the site was
carried out on 15 October 1999 with Nathaniel Cutajar
and Michelle B uhagiar, Curator and Assistant Curator
respectively at the National Museum of Archaeology.
The scatter of surface ceramics and the existence of
previously known and unknown features revealed the
extent and potential of the site. It was decided that the
locality of Ghajn Klieb warranted systematic study that
could be carried out in various stages, with the longterm
aim being an assessment of human activity and
cultural behaviour at the site. The Museums Department
gave the go-ahead for this project, and permission to
collect the surface ceramics was granted. This short
report is intended to give an outline of the work
undertaken to date. Emphasis is placed on the field
methods adopted and on the presentation of what we
believe to be worth talking about at this stage. An effort
is here made by the senior author to unravel the
collaborative nature of the exercise by lending weight
to individual thoughts and interpretations that arose while
work progressed in the field.peer-reviewe
Report on the excavation of a Punic tomb
On 19th November 2001, while two of us (DB, NJC)
were preparing a drawn record of the Punic tomb
that is situated on Bajda Ridge, Xemxija, a small
ceramic bowl (100211) was uncovered from below
a few centimetres of soil that covered the inner part
of the threshold to the rock-cut chamber (Fig. 1).
An official from the Museums Department was
informed of the discovery on the same day and a
site inspection was carried out. It was realised that
more artefacts could lie undisturbed within the
chamber and a decision was taken to excavate the
deposit. Authorisation for the Department of
Classics and Archaeology, University of Malta, to
undertake the excavation was received from the
Director, Museums Department, and the excavation
was completed on the 22nd November.
The tomb is located on the ridge, near a path that
diverges eastwards from the track that links Pwales
valley to the Mistra valley. It is cut in the Upper
Coralline limestone that outcrops in the area on a
North-South axis and consists of a sub-rectangular
chamber that is reached through a low entrance at
the bottom of a rectangular shaft (Fig. 1).
The tomb appears in an inventory for the first time
in 1996 when it was listed in the survey of
archaeological sites prepared by Malta University
Services for the Planning Authority by Anthony
Bonanno in connection with the preparation of the
North-West local plan for Malta. The tomb had been
examined and photographed by one of us (NCV) in
1992. At the time, it was littered with debris and it
was only with difficulty that a view of the chamber
could be achieved through the entrance that was
partly concealed by an irregular blocking stone. Late
in 2000, members of the St Paul's Bay Heritage
Group lifted the debris from the trench and cleared
the area around the site.peer-reviewe
The 4.2 ka event and the end of the Maltese “Temple Period”
The small size and relatively challenging environmental conditions of the semi-isolated
Maltese archipelago mean that the area offers an important case study of societal
change and human-environment interactions. Following an initial phase of Neolithic
settlement, the “Temple Period” in Malta began ∼5.8 thousand years ago (ka), and
came to a seemingly abrupt end ∼4.3 ka, and was followed by Bronze Age societies
with radically different material culture. Various ideas concerning the reasons for the
end of the Temple Period have been expressed. These range from climate change, to
invasion, to social conflict resulting from the development of a powerful “priesthood.”
Here, we explore the idea that the end of the Temple Period relates to the 4.2 ka event.
The 4.2 ka event has been linked with several examples of significant societal change
around the Mediterranean, such as the end of the Old Kingdom in Egypt, yet its
character and relevance have been debated. The Maltese example offers a fascinating
case study for understanding issues such as chronological uncertainty, disentangling
cause and effect when several different processes are involved, and the role of abrupt
environmental change in impacting human societies. Ultimately, it is suggested that the
4.2ka event may have played a role in the end of the Temple Period, but that other
factors seemingly played a large, and possibly predominant, role. As well as our
chronological modelling indicating the decline of Temple Period society in the centuries
before the 4.2 ka event, we highlight the possible significance of other factors such as a
plague epidemic.peer-reviewe
Transcriptional diversity during lineage commitment of human blood progenitors.
Blood cells derive from hematopoietic stem cells through stepwise fating events. To characterize gene expression programs driving lineage choice, we sequenced RNA from eight primary human hematopoietic progenitor populations representing the major myeloid commitment stages and the main lymphoid stage. We identified extensive cell type-specific expression changes: 6711 genes and 10,724 transcripts, enriched in non-protein-coding elements at early stages of differentiation. In addition, we found 7881 novel splice junctions and 2301 differentially used alternative splicing events, enriched in genes involved in regulatory processes. We demonstrated experimentally cell-specific isoform usage, identifying nuclear factor I/B (NFIB) as a regulator of megakaryocyte maturation-the platelet precursor. Our data highlight the complexity of fating events in closely related progenitor populations, the understanding of which is essential for the advancement of transplantation and regenerative medicine.The work described in this article was primarily supported by the European Commission Seventh Framework Program through the BLUEPRINT grant with code HEALTH-F5-2011-282510 (D.H., F.B., G.C., J.H.A.M., K.D., L.C., M.F., S.C., S.F., and S.P.G.). Research in the Ouwehand laboratory is further supported by program grants from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR, www.nihr.ac.uk; to A.A., M.K., P.P., S.B.G.J., S.N., and W.H.O.) and the British Heart Foundation under nos. RP-PG-0310-1002 and RG/09/12/28096 (www.bhf.org.uk; to A.R. and W.J.A.). K.F. and M.K. were supported by Marie Curie funding from the NETSIM FP7 program funded by the European Commission. The laboratory receives funding from the NHS Blood and Transplant for facilities. The Cambridge BioResource (www.cambridgebioresource.org.uk), the Cell Phenotyping Hub, and the Cambridge Translational GenOmics laboratory (www.catgo.org.uk) are supported by an NIHR grant to the Cambridge NIHR Biomedical Research Centre (BRC). The BRIDGE-Bleeding and Platelet Disorders Consortium is supported by the NIHR BioResource—Rare Diseases (http://bioresource.nihr.ac.uk/; to E.T., N.F., and Whole Exome Sequencing effort). Research in the Soranzo laboratory (L.V., N.S., and S. Watt) is further supported by the Wellcome Trust (Grant Codes WT098051 and WT091310) and the EU FP7 EPIGENESYS initiative (Grant Code 257082). Research in the Cvejic laboratory (A. Cvejic and C.L.) is funded by the Cancer Research UK under grant no. C45041/A14953. S.J.S. is funded by NIHR. M.E.F. is supported by a British Heart Foundation Clinical Research Training Fellowship, no. FS/12/27/29405. E.B.-M. is supported by a Wellcome Trust grant, no. 084183/Z/07/Z. Research in the Laffan laboratory is supported by Imperial College BRC. F.A.C., C.L., and S. Westbury are supported by Medical Research Council Clinical Training Fellowships, and T.B. by a British Society of Haematology/NHS Blood and Transplant grant. R.J.R. is a Principal Research Fellow of the Wellcome Trust, grant no. 082961/Z/07/Z. Research in the Flicek laboratory is also supported by the Wellcome Trust (grant no. 095908) and EMBL. Research in the Bertone laboratory is supported by EMBL. K.F. and C.v.G. are supported by FWO-Vlaanderen through grant G.0B17.13N. P.F. is a compensated member of the Omicia Inc. Scientific Advisory Board. This study made use of data generated by the UK10K Consortium, derived from samples from the Cohorts arm of the project.This is the author’s version of the work. It is posted here by permission of the AAAS for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Science on 26/9/14 in volume 345, number 6204, DOI: 10.1126/science.1251033. This version will be under embargo until the 26th of March 2015
Inventory of current EU paediatric vision and hearing screening programmes
Background: We examined the diversity in paediatric vision and hearing screening
programmes in Europe.
Methods: Themes relevant for comparison of screening programmes were derived from
literature and used to compile three questionnaires on vision, hearing and public-health
screening. Tests used, professions involved, age and frequency of testing seem to influence
sensitivity, specificity and costs most. Questionnaires were sent to ophthalmologists,
orthoptists, otolaryngologists and audiologists involved in paediatric screening in all EU fullmember,
candidate and associate states. Answers were cross-checked.
Results: Thirty-nine countries participated; 35 have a vision screening programme, 33 a
nation-wide neonatal hearing screening programme. Visual acuity (VA) is measured in 35
countries, in 71% more than once. First measurement of VA varies from three to seven years
of age, but is usually before the age of five. At age three and four picture charts, including Lea
Hyvarinen are used most, in children over four Tumbling-E and Snellen. As first hearing
screening test otoacoustic emission (OAE) is used most in healthy neonates, and auditory
brainstem response (ABR) in premature newborns. The majority of hearing testing
programmes are staged; children are referred after one to four abnormal tests. Vision
screening is performed mostly by paediatricians, ophthalmologists or nurses. Funding is
mostly by health insurance or state. Coverage was reported as >95% in half of countries, but
reporting was often not first-hand.
Conclusion: Largest differences were found in VA charts used (12), professions involved in
vision screening (10), number of hearing screening tests before referral (1-4) and funding
sources (8)
Granulometry of the deep cores
This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7-2007-2013) (Grant agreement No. 323727)
The molluscan counts for the deep cores
This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7-2007-2013) (Grant agreement No. 323727)
Deep core borehole logs
This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7-2007-2013) (Grant agreement No. 323727)