DISCOVERY 



205 



remains actually found, but from the representation 

 of such animals carved in two of the rooms of the 

 temple. 



The bulls and the pig have already been mentioned ; 

 the other animals are carved on two slabs which formed 

 a kind of dado in a side chapel. One of these friezes 

 represents two rows of eleven goats each. The animals, 

 depicted as in motion, are well drawn and carefully 

 modelled ; they have long curved horns with a back- 

 ward sweep characteristic of the Persian wild goat. 

 The other frieze shows four goats, a pig and a ram. 



important objects discovered, for they show, as no 

 other object would, the high ideal of human nature 

 entertained in the very dawn of civilisation. 



The potsherds collected among the Neolithic material 

 are so numerous as to baffle description. There are 

 fragments of pots of every shape and size, rough and 

 polished, plain and decorated, coarse and thin. The 

 majority of the vases display superior workmanship, 

 being gracefully modelled, with a hand-burnished 

 surface in some cases possessing the appearance of 

 enamel. The colour varies from a light fawn to a 



Fig. 4.— bronze-age objects focxd in cinerary urns, hai. tarxien. 



The foregoing are the main features of the Tarxien 

 temples which have added valuable information to what 

 we already knew about the conditions of life during 

 the Neolithic Age in Malta. The objects discovered in 

 the ruins are hardly less important than the buildings 

 themselves. As one would have expected, stone 

 objects were the more numerous, and included such 

 implements as hammers, mortars, grinders, troughs, 

 and such objects as stone balls, cones of various descrip- 

 tions, the use of which is not certain, polished stone 

 axes, used probably as amulets, flint and obsidian 

 knives, beads made from marine shells, bone awls, 

 needles, burnishers, etc., all of which were encoun- 

 tered in considerable quantity. Stone statuettes 

 representing human figures are, perhaps, the most 



rich brown or a deep black. The plain polished ware 

 is the more common, but decorated pottery was abun- 

 dant. Fine lines and deep incisions, often filled up with 

 a white or a red paste, decorated the polished surfaces 

 with geometrical patterns ; a peculiar black ware is 

 studded with circular bosses, forming sometimes 

 elaborate scroll patterns, which stand out sharply on 

 a white background. Painted ware has also been 

 found, broad bands of a bright red colour being, in 

 these cases, laid thickly along curved lines. 



All these objects point to the long experience of an 

 old race which had lived for a considerable period under 

 peaceful and favourable conditions. From informa- 

 tion gained from all the Neolithic stations so far 

 excavated, it appears that the Maltese settlers of the 



