University of Wisconsin Milwaukee UWM Digital Commons Theses and Dissertations May 2017 Melita in Milwaukee: the Milwaukee Public Museum’s Leopardi Collection Stephan Noureddine Hassam University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.uwm.edu/etd Part of the Archaeological Anthropology Commons, and the Library and Information Science Commons Recommended Citation Hassam, Stephan Noureddine, "Melita in Milwaukee: the Milwaukee Public Museum’s Leopardi Collection" (2017). Theses and Dissertations. 1483. https://dc.uwm.edu/etd/1483 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by UWM Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of UWM Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. MELITA IN MILWAUKEE: THE MILWAUKEE PUBLIC MUSEUM’S LEOPARDI COLLECTION by Stephan Noureddine Hassam A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Anthropology at The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee May 2017 ABSTRACT MELITA IN MILWAUKEE: THE MILWAUKEE PUBLIC MUSEUM’S LEOPARDI COLLECTION by Stephan Noureddine Hassam The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2017 Under the Supervision of Professor Bettina Arnold The Phoenician/Punic occupation of Malta is an important period in the nation’s history. The Phoenicians first settled the Maltese islands sometime in the early to late seventh century B.C., and their material culture left a lasting influence on the island for nearly a millennium. Beginning in the early 1600s, Phoenician material culture began to be recognized as such. Following wider trends in the Enlightenment era in Europe, Maltese nobility and clergy began collecting antiquities. Much of this material culture is now known through museum and private collections that have recently been published. Despite a very early implementation of cultural heritage laws that forbid removing antiquities from the nation, a private collection of this material with links to a noble family and at least one sister collection in Malta made its way to the Milwaukee Public Museum (MPM). This thesis presents a preliminary analysis of a collection of predominantly Punico-Roman materials, especially funerary ceramics, which were exported to the MPM in the late 1960s. The research is split into two phases, beginning with biographical research on the collection’s donors to provide provenance for the museum’s documentation. The second phase updates the outmoded terminology since the collection first arrived at the museum and provides a preliminary attribution of context for the material. ii Copyright by Stephan N. Hassam, 2017 All Rights Reserved iii I dedicate this thesis to my mother. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1: Introduction and Literature Review........................................................................ 1 Aim and Scope of Project ........................................................................................................... 2 Primary Research Components ................................................................................................... 3 Geography and Geology ............................................................................................................. 5 Maltese Prehistory ...................................................................................................................... 9 Phoenician Settlement ............................................................................................................... 10 Phoenician, Punic, and Roman Malta ....................................................................................... 14 The Phoenicians .................................................................................................................... 15 The Punic Period ................................................................................................................... 16 The Roman Period ................................................................................................................ 18 Ethnicity and Identity in the Central Mediterranean................................................................. 20 Mortuary Practices in Malta ...................................................................................................... 23 Antiquarian Interest in Maltese Archaeology ........................................................................... 29 Recent Scholarship on Ceramic Typologies in Malta............................................................... 31 Chapter 2: The Leopardi Collection at the MPM.................................................................... 35 Ethical Considerations .............................................................................................................. 52 Rarity of the Collection ............................................................................................................. 54 Chapter 3: Methods and Analysis ............................................................................................. 59 Donor Biography and Provenance ............................................................................................ 60 Descriptive Analysis ................................................................................................................. 60 Ceramics ................................................................................................................................... 64 Open Form Vessels ............................................................................................................... 65 Beakers .............................................................................................................................. 65 Bowls/Lids ........................................................................................................................ 66 Cooking Vessels................................................................................................................ 67 Kylikes .............................................................................................................................. 68 Plates/Lids ......................................................................................................................... 69 Skyphos ............................................................................................................................. 70 Spinning Wheel ................................................................................................................. 71 Closed Form Vessels............................................................................................................. 71 Amphorae .......................................................................................................................... 71 Aryballos ........................................................................................................................... 72 Ewer .................................................................................................................................. 73 Flasks ................................................................................................................................ 74 Juglets ............................................................................................................................... 75 Jugs ................................................................................................................................... 75 v Krater ................................................................................................................................ 76 Lamp Warmer ................................................................................................................... 77 Unguentaria ....................................................................................................................... 78 Urns ................................................................................................................................... 79 Unattributed Sherds .............................................................................................................. 81 Lamps .................................................................................................................................... 82 Bilychnes Lamps ............................................................................................................... 83 Hellenistic Lamps ............................................................................................................. 83 Roman Lamps ................................................................................................................... 84 Romano-Maltese Lamps ................................................................................................... 85 Byzantine Lamps .............................................................................................................. 85 Terracotta Figurines .................................................................................................................. 86 Aegyptica .................................................................................................................................. 88 Architectural Elements.............................................................................................................. 90 Coins ........................................................................................................................................