High up on a flat ridge and tucked away behind a secondary school in Żejtun, archaeology students are digging up the remains of an ancient Roman villa. Discovered in 1961, the site has been the subject of two large-scale archaeological investigations, the first of which was carried out in the 1970s.
Archaeological investigations were resumed in 2006 under the direction of Anthony Bonanno and Nicholas Vella from the Department of Classics and Archaeology, University of Malta.
Although known as a Roman villa, complete with an olive press, pottery findings show that the site dates back to Punic times.
This year, the archaeologists are focusing on exploring a cistern and investigating the structures in more depth, while coming up with unexpected finds: the latest discoveries are fragments of a tobacco pipe, probably dating to the 18th century.
“We are trying to identify whether or not the rest of the structure and the olive press also date back to the Punic times,” said Maxine Anastasi, one of the trench supervisors. “Everything we discover during our excavation will be forwarded to specialists to study and date the finds.”
During the first full-scale excavation in 1972, the section...
