12 - Colonisations and Cultural Developments in the Central Mediterranean

Summary

This chapter discusses Greek and Phoenician colonisation in the central Mediterranean as a historical activity. It presents the interactions between the colonising and existing local communities in Sicily and Malta as articulated through shared and modified practices expressed in the material culture record. Most contemporary Phoenician material in Sicily comes from Motya, an island site of Sicily's western coast founded by Phoenicians at the end of the eighth century. Late eighth-century Phoenician material also appears in the earliest graves of the Greek colonies. Finally, the chapter reviews the cultural and sociopolitical development of Malta and Sicily, both of which were geographically situated at strategic locales within a connected Mediterranean, to argue that their respective diverse developments resulted from their engagements with one another and the broader central Mediterranean. The permanent presence of Greeks and Phoenicians in the central Mediterranean led to the widespread exchange of goods, practices and ideas between these foreigners and the extant local populations.