The gentle, unassuming giant

It must have been three or so years ago, in late October.

I, along with a group of interested persons, climbed the Nuffara hill in Gozo, across the valley from Xaghra, led by an agile and nimble, for his age, guide, David Trump. Professor Trump who was a giant in Maltese archaeology, died last week aged 85, a few days after his birthday.

Others may perhaps give a more rounded appreciation of his life and work. He had a particular interest in the archaeology of the Mediterranean – that of Sardinia, of Sicily and mainly of Malta. Between 1958 and 1963, he was curator of the National Museum of Archaeology in Valletta.

He developed a programme of archaeological excavations including the first excavations of the Skorba site.

Prof. Trump was the first archaeologist to use the carbon

14 dating in Malta which led to his discovery of two new phases in Maltese prehistory, and are now described as the Skorba red and grey phases. And yet, as we climbed and slithered up the last steep bit of the Nuffara, rendered slippery by the previous days’ rain, we could not but be amazed at how lightly Prof. Trump handled his knowledge. Nuffara, he told us, must have been a Bronze Age settlement, and up there we could understand this was a very good site. You can see all around you and the site is extremely well defended by nature. Yet, he corrected us, the Bronze Age people are not known to have had enemies, so why then did they live up there where they had to walk down to their fields every day and, after a day’s work, climb up the hill to their homes? He led us round the top of the hill, which, like other hills in Gozo, is amazingly flat on top. From up there we could see Xaghra across the valley, overlook the racecourse at Tax-Xhajma, and contemplate the Gozitan countryside in the autumn sun. Towards the end of our tour, as we came round the southernwestern corner, he showed us some holes in the ground and then, to our total amazement, nimbly jumped into one of them to show the practical use they had as storage vats. Then he pointed out that the earth around us was full of ceramic ochrecoloured bits which most probably came from Bronze Age pottery ware.

That was not the only time I had listened to a David Trump lecture and each one was a real experience in itself.

He lectured in the tradition of an English Don, which he was at Cambridge, exuding knowledge but not showing off.

In April 2008, I had written: “Skorba is accepted by all as one of the most important archaeological sites in the Maltese Islands.

“Excavations led by David Trump in the 1960s unearthed remains from all the known phases of Maltese pre-history – from the Ghar Dalam era (5000 to 4300BC) to the phase now known as the Skorba phase (4500 to 4100BC), to the temple period (3600 to 2500BC).

“However, enclosed behind a flimsy wire-netting fence is not only just a part of the actual Skorba area but also the less important part. The more important part lies outside the wire netting and is in private hands.

“The government has known about this for decades and the proposal that the government buys or expropriates the land has been wandering around in government corridors in the Lands Department and elsewhere for years.

“In addition, one of the farmers who owns the land actually wants to give the land to the government.

And yet, up until now, the land remains outside the fence and at the mercy of everyone.”

On 8 June 2014, I wrote a long report about a talk given by Prof. Trump at the National Museum