Possibly late during the Roman occupation of Malta, a young deceased girl had a funerary
monument set up in her memory by her loving mother. Analysis of both epigraphic content
and iconographic elements on this monument would show that the mother; at least, is likely to
have been originally a public slave but later achieved manumission, a status which remained
to be enjoyed by herself and by her daughter. Moreover, they seem to have adhered to the then
commonly held beliefs regarding the nature of death and afterlife. Yet, identifying their beliefs
on the nature of death and afterlife did not prove sufficient to determine their religious identity
as such beliefs were evidently shared by different religious groups.peer-reviewe