Quale rito per la dea? Pratiche del sacro nel santuario di Tas-Silg a Malta

Th…e paper analyses the ritual practices recorded in the Tas-Silġ sanctuary, in the island of Malta, focusing on what features can be retraced for the historical phases prior to the Late republican age, between 8th and 2nd century BC. …e ‡rst period (8th-5th century BC) refers to the Phoenician phase of the site: the new structures do not seem to interfere with the prehistoric temple, which is kept unaltered. …e worshipped deity – known from the inscriptions – is Astarte: the complex personality of the goddess, featuring traits belonging to the local tradition, has marked chthonian characters, as testi‡ed by the existence of the recently explored hypogeum structures. …e new elements added in the sacri‡cial area over the timespan between 4th and 2nd century BC reveal a new openness towards Mediterranean inˆuences; the hypogeum is not used for rituals anymore, and the chthonian traits of the cult clearly lose strenghth, probably under the inˆuence of the new cultural context.