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Ancient wine presses cut into rock faces
Centuries ago, come September, galleys would be rowed into Mġarr ix-Xini harbour and loaded with amphorae filled with wine that had been pressed in the valley.
Winemakers would fill shallow basins with grapes and, once pressed, the juice would flow through holes and channels into a deeper collecting holder, all carved into the rock.
These wine presses, said to date back to 500 BC, can still be seen embedded in the Gozitan valley and are being studied and documented in a project carried out by the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage and the Sannat and Xewkija local councils with the support of Camilleri Wines.
Apart from safeguarding heritage, the project offers an interesting insight into Malta and Gozo's past.
"What is not seen today is that Mġarr ix-Xini valley was functioning as a main artery, as a seaport... It functioned as a huge agro-industrial area," explained Superintendent of Cultural Heritage Anthony Pace, who leads the project together with archaeologist George Azzopardi.
He explained how the presses, dug into the ground, were made of a shallow basin upon which an additional structure was mounted to press the grapes.
The juices would flow into the deeper basin and this motion was aided by the fact that the presses were built on an incline. Similar presses are present in Malta in the Mġarr Valley in and near Mnajdra, in an area known as Misqa tanks.
Such presses have also been identified in various parts of the world such as Portugal, Spain, Italy, France, Greece, Turkey, Palestine, Syria and South Africa.
Mr Pace elaborated that winemakers would have minimised losses through seepage by first filling the basins with water so the rock would soak up the water. Excess water would then be removed shortly before pressing.
He said it was believed that, once pressed, the wine was collected in amphorae and shipped off to Sicily on galleys that came into the harbour.
Since the project started in 2005, 15 presses have been identified, documented and mapped. Pieces of pottery, including drinking glasses, were also found during excavation works that helped date the presses.
Next summer the second excavation will take place, with the help of students and volunteers. The next step, Mr Pace said, would be to publish the data.
On hearing about this project, which has revealed more about the history of local winemaking, Camilleri Wines wanted to support it through its Mystic Araar, vintage 2007.
For each of the 3,333 limited edition bottles produced, Camilleri Wines will donate €1 to the project, Claudio Camilleri, head of sales and marketing, said.
"Each year we would like to pitch our vintage towards corporate social responsibility and, this year, we're supporting cultural heritage," he said.
This is the second time Camilleri wines is producing the Mystic Araar wine.
The brand was launched in 2008 when the first batch of limited edition vintage 2006 wines were handed out to the winery's clients. The aim was to raise awareness about Malta's national tree which is in danger of extinction - the Sandarac gum tree, more commonly known as Is-Siġra tal-Għargħar, from where the brand gets its name.
That year the company had committed itself to plant 50 trees for three years.
Mystic Araar vintage 2007 - a blend of Syrah, Tempranillo and Merlot - can be bought for €25 a bottle and comes in a silver tin with an information leaflet about the Mġarr Ix-Xini project.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20100112/local/gozo-rock-holds-ancient-wine-presses
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(notes relate to the photo posted here: http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/post/82176/boleycarrigeen.html)
Boleycarrigeen Stone Circle at sunset 03/01/10, in the foreground are the two portal stones which are the tallest stones in the circle and in the centre of the shot is the axial stone, one of the smallest, probably indicating sunset at winter solstice from what I saw this afternoon and as can be seen in the photo. The sun's setting position moves extremely slowly around the solstices though a proper survey and observation closer to the date might be needed to confirm.
As far as I can tell from researching this circle this alignment has not been noted before. Burl does not indicate any alignment event here at all. Up until the last year the circle was in a small clearing in a plantation that blocked views in all directions but near the winter solstice in 2005, Tom Fourwinds and I thought we could see some sunlight glow behind the axial stone.
This year was the first that accurate observations could be made but due to bad weather and treacherous roads it was only today that I managed to return to view the sunset, though I don't recommend anyone visiting any time soon as the roads are still extremely dangerous. The plantation is also growing back quickly with no route left to the circle, the trees are planted very close together so this and possibly next year may be the last time this can be viewed before the circle is swallowed up again by trees.
I think I owe the guy who drive in front of me up to the hills a credit here too because if he wasn't driving in front of me I probably wouldn't have chanced the roads at all as they were like ski slopes (though his jeep had much bigger tyres than mine!).
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Now this is interesting. The stone is kept in a heritage museum in the former Church of Ireland at St. Mullins (the ruined abbey and high cross are in the same place) and I was told the National Musuem has the original and the heritage centre a copy.
Either Ireland is home to a master stone carver who lovingly spent years carving and applying very convincing weathering and wear on this stone or both the National Museum and the Heritage Centre have gotten themselves into a mixup. I'm 95% sure this is the original stone taken from the top of a field wall on Dranagh Mountain, and the carvings match a sketch taken from the piece in the National Museum. The Heritage Centre have original pics of the stone from not long after it was found and every contour of the stone matches yet not a single modern tool mark is visible. Remarkable!
It is a lovely stone with an unusual design, could be a sibling of the stone at Tinnacarrig in that the design seems to have been planned around the shape of the piece. And here, like at Spahill, we see a lip/groove carved around the edge of the stone and curling back into the space to the right of the cup and ring. A beauty, and either the best fake in the world or a little stone lost...
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Tara Lecture Series 2009
Tara Lecture Series 2009
Wednesdays in July.
Hill of Tara Visitor Centre
July 1st
8.00pm
'How the Ancient Irish viewed the Skies'
by Terry Moseley, Irish Astronomical Association
July 8th
8.00pm
'Galileo and the Copernican Revolution'
by Professor Markus Woerner,NUI Galway
July 15th
8.00pm
'Irish Astronomy in the Nineteenth Century'
by Professor Trevor Weekes, Smithsonian Institution
July 22nd
8.00pm
Exploring the Cosmos: the view from Hubble and Beyond
by Dr Deirdre Coffey, Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies
All lectures are Free of Charge
All Welcome!
Organised by the Office of Public Works in association with
the International Year of Astronomy
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Summer Solstice Sunrise, 21st June 2009.
Ah yes, the summer solstice. I trekked up the hillside from the carpark (a longer and steeper walk than I had anticipated for this early in the morning!) and arrived just in time for that ancient traditional ritual: 'Foxy, SHUT THE F*&K UP!! F&%K SAKE! Mick, shut your effing dog up, f%&kin hell'.
Two heads had camped up at the circle and their pregnant retriever was guarding the tent with far too much enthusiasm. Who needs ravers and gluesniffers at Stonehenge when you can stare into the 'jaws of death' in Bonane Heritage Park.
Eventually one body emerged from the tent, and soon we were joined by a biker who's friend had gotten a puncture and was observing the cloudy skyline from the side of a miserable road a few miles away.
It didn't take long for the reality to sink in, there was to be no sunrise this solstice. The horizon line is quite high up above the circle so I knew it would be some time before the sun would reach that high so I wandered around the other monuments in the park in vain hope.
At 6.30am, the silence was once again broken by the sound of cars roaring up the track way. Thee cars appeared and parked below the ring fort, it seemed to have been some kind of guided tour so I shadowed them for a while to see what I could find out.
The sunrise from the circle apparently occurs quite late, sometime around 6.30- 6.40am. At this time the sun has been up for over an hour and so would be a blinding light appearing above the ridge beyond, probably impossible to observe safely with the naked eye and very tricky to photograph (no chance of detail in the circle unless you blend a couple of shots).
I think this was the fourth cloudy solstice in a row, except one year when I watched the most beautiful sunrise from a deckchair off the coast of Borneo. At least I came away with two valuable nuggets of information for next time, sleep in for another hour and check the gates are locked before huffing and puffing up the hill by foot!
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Animated GIF of the 'Rolling Sun' on 18th April 2009
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This is an amazing and exceptionally rare example of a near complete court tomb, just one roofstone appears to be missing. The court and cairn are still underneath the bog, the top of the cairn reaches just a little higher than the uncut surrounding bog. One of the most important features of this particular site is the untouched corbelled walls and roofing which shows how the many court tombs with only low walls remaining would originally have been built up into substantial chambers.
To find this site you need either a GPS unit or guidance from a local.
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