Il complesso ipogeo del santuario di Tas Silg a Malta

[Autom. eng. transl.] The Maltese sanctuary of Tas-Silg, frequented since the Neolithic, has recently given an extraordinary testimony of a cultic practice still in many ways obscure. The area in front of the temple preserves, at about 6 m below the current floor, a complex system of galleries and rooms whose characters, already at a first exploration, denounce its ritual nature. In the structures there are different phases of construction and use, which begin at least in the Phoenician age and end with the transformation into cisterns in the late Republican era. This discovery opens up new research perspectives on the identity of the "Lady Astarte of Malta" venerated here: the hypogeum and the structures for sacrifice indicate the chthonic dimension of the cult of the goddess, archeologically little known and probably already linked to the local female divinity.