THE MEDITERRANEAN NATURALIST 
structure which is situated on an eminence in the 
vicinity of the village of Xaghra. It consists of 
enormous masses of rock piled one on the other 
and arranged in a roughly circular form. 
The interior is made up of a series of courts 
which are similar in size, shape, and construction 
to those of Hagiar Cliem. 
Of their Phoenician origin there seems to be no 
doubt as they possess all the more characteristic 
features of the Malta temples. 
In the year 1713 while some excavations were 
being made in the vicinity of the tower an inter- 
esting relic of this period was exhumed. 
It consisted of an Egyptian Triad of undoubted 
Phoenician origin, which Caruana thinks was in- 
tended to represent Osiris, Isis and Orus, 
The front and sides of the statue are covered 
with hieroglyphics,/ which have not yet been de- 
ciphered. It is now preserved in the Malta 
Museum. 
The sides of the hills and plateaux of both Malta 
and Gozo are honey-combecl with rock tombs 
that were formerly made by the Phoenicians, and 
used by them as burial places. Like all orientals the 
Phoenicians p ref erred the cave mode of sepulture 
to any other; cremation and burial in pits being 
forbidden by their religion. Diodorus tells us 
they, therefore, carefully wrapped their dead in 
shrouds, “jacere cadaver pro ilagitio erat,” or they 
preserved them with “condeiites in urnis fictilibus.” 
The Maltese rock tombs do not differ in any 
respect from those found at Sidon. and other old 
Phoenician settlements. 
The internal arrangements are the same, and 
even the physical surroundings are, in most cases, 
analogous. The tomb usually consists of a vaulted 
chamber from five to seven feet in length, and 
wfidth, and about two and a half feet high. In the 
floor are recesses of a hemispherical shape in 
which the heads of the dead rested, while between 
each recess are two ridges forming a framework 
which w T as intended for the reception of a perpen- 
dicular slab to separate one body from another. 
On either side of the doorways are small niches, 
upon which earthenware lamps, were placed. 
Considerable numbers of these lamps, as well as 
pottery of various shapes and sizes have been 
obtained from these places of sepulture, but they 
are now so much sought after by the numerous 
visitors v ho have winter residences in the islands, 
that few tombs are to be found that have not been 
rifled of their contents. Most of these ancient 
burying places are devoid of ornamentation. 
In the vicinity of Mnaidra there is one which 
exhibits on its facade a number of scallopings, 
symetrically arranged, that appear as though 
they had been formed by a hard, sharp tool; and 
in another is a crude representation, in paint, of 
a woman spinning. It is, however, probable as 
Adams points out in his w r ork on the “Nile Valley 
and Malta” that much of this ornamentation ; ; of 
a late date, and may have been the work of the 
Greeks and Romans who also used the caves 
during their occupation of the islands. 
Undisturbed rock-tombs are, even now, occas- 
sionally broken into when the foundations of 
houses are being dug, or new roads are being laid 
out, and urns of baked clay and glass amphoras 
containing some relics of the dead, reward the 
fortunate finders: but such occurrences are rare. 
Several good examples have lately been disco- 
vered on Corradino hill; and an interesting spe- 
cimen is to be seen in the field opposite the bridge 
leading to Fort Manoel. 
It was from a rock tomb discovered in this 
manner at Ghar Barca that, Abela tells us, a 
Sarcophagus of Phoenician origin was found; and 
since then several others of a similar character 
have been discovered in different parts of the 
island. They have been fashioned out of a variety 
of materials of which lead, marble, stone, and 
terra cotta are the principal. 
Of the three now in the Valletta Museum the 
one that is made of polished terra cotta, and 
which represents the figure of a young girl, is the 
one to which the Maltese historian Abela referred 
in 1797. 
Considering the position that Malta occupied 
as one of the principal trading depots of these 
people it is surprising that so few specimens of 
their coinage should have been found in the Is- 
lands. Those that have been discovered are, 
however, in a remarkably fine state of preserva- 
tion; and all belong exclusively to the island 
of Malta. These Phoenieo-Maltese coins are made 
of brass and have b een divided by nuismists 
into five types or classes; a detailed description 
of each of which is given by Caruana in his work, 
