Il-Gebla ta’ Sasuna
No licensed photograph yetWe have no photograph we may publish for this site, so the interpretive 3D view leads instead.
Overview
About this site
Overview
Il-Gebla ta’ Sasuna is a dolmen near Xaghra on Gozo, the island belonging to Malta. Its remains lie in a private garden not far from the Brochtorff Circle. They consist of a broken capstone of coralline limestone about 3.9 m long and about 0.8 m thick.
Read on Wikipedia1 min readCC BY-SA 4.0
Article
Il-Gebla ta’ Sasuna
DescriptionSources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Il-Ġebla ta’ SasunaCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Il-Ġebla ta’ SasunaCC BY-SA 4.0
The surviving capstone is about 3.9 m long and about 0.8 m thick and is made of coralline limestone. It is broken, and it now rests on its supporting stone at one end only.
They consist of a roughly dressed capstone supported on two or three sides by uprights, which usually stand on the long narrow sides.
ContextSources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Il-Ġebla ta’ SasunaCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Il-Ġebla ta’ SasunaCC BY-SA 4.0
In Maltese, dolmens are called l-imsaqqfa ('provided with a roof'). They consist of a roughly dressed capstone supported on two or three sides by uprights, which usually stand on the long narrow sides. Beneath the centre the bedrock is cut away to form a pit up to 60 cm deep. The dolmens served as burial places, for cremations. The megalithic monuments of Malta date from the early Bronze Age Tarxien Cemetery phase (2500–1500 BCE). The closest parallels are found in Apulia and Sicily, and, for the simple form, on the Golan.
Tradition and region
About this kind of monument
Dolmens
A dolmen is a single-chamber megalithic tomb, usually made of two or more upright stones supporting a large flat horizontal capstone, or table. Most date from the Late Neolithic period, 4000 to 3000 BCE, and were sometimes covered with earth or smaller stones to form a tumulus. In many dolmens the covering has eroded away, leaving only the stone skeleton. The word entered archaeology when Théophile Corret de la Tour d'Auvergne used it to describe megalithic tombs in his book of 1796.
Dolmens go by many names. In Portuguese and Galician they are antas, in Dutch hunebedden, in Danish dysser, in Swedish dösar, in Basque trikuharri, in Welsh cromlechau, in Cornwall quoits, and in Korean goindol, "propped stone". In Catalan-speaking areas folk names include cova (cave), caixa (crate or coffin), taula (table), arca (chest) and cabana (hut). The German Hünengrab and Dutch hunebed carry the word Hüne, "giant", and evoke giants buried there; that is an old explanation for monuments too large for ordinary people, and it is folklore, not evidence.
They are found in Europe, the Caucasus, the Levant, Korea and India. They are not all of one age or culture. In Europe most belong to the Neolithic, but in the Levant they are of the Early Bronze Age and in Korea they were built from the Bronze Age to the early Iron Age. The Levantine tradition is a different, unrelated one from that of Europe.
The Atlas uses this article for dolmens in countries that do not have their own article, such as Switzerland and Belgium. Dating is by typology, with absolute dates available only where a tomb has been excavated.
When visiting, look for the capstone and its supports, for traces of a mound or kerb around them, and for the direction in which the entrance faces.
Paraphrased from Wikipedia: Dolmen, Wikipedia: Portal dolmen, Wikipedia: Funnel beaker culture · CC BY-SA 4.0
From the article
Dated moments in the story
- 1500 BCE
Die Megalithanlagen Maltas stammen aus der frühen bronzezeitlichen „Tarxien-Cemetery-Phase“ (2500–1500 v. Chr.) Die nächsten Parallelen finden sich in Apulien und auf Sizilien, was die einfache Form angeht, auf dem Golan.
Source
See it in 3D
An interpretive reconstruction of the monument, standing on the real ground at its exact point, under the sun for that place and season. Drag to look around it.
The reconstruction is ours, not a survey: it shows what a monument of this type looks like, at the size the record gives for this one.
Where it stands
Malta
The pin marks the monument itself — its exact point.
- Coordinates
- 36°03′15″ N, 14°15′32″ EFor a GPS or map app: 36.05417, 14.25889
Access is as our sources describe it; we have not visited the site to check.
Nearby
The closest sites in the Atlas, by straight line.
_092.JPG){kind=link}
Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
1 source behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q17575950wikidata.org
Report a correctionWrong date, name, photograph or source? Tell us and it will be put right.
Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Il-Ġebla ta’ Sasuna" (German), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; authors are listed in the page history. Reused under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read on Wikipedia · Edit history and authors
- Wikipedia (German): Il-Ġebla ta’ SasunaCC BY-SA 4.0
- Wikidata Q17575950CC0