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SHOWCASEMALTA
EXPO 2020 DUBAI
Heritage Malta
Shared Identities the future in the past For the CEO of Heritage Malta, the past is a foretelling. When Showcase Dubai caught up with Noel Zammit, he spoke with passion about the rich cultural past of the islands and the way they are being made accessible. ‘Look around with your eyes. Is there anything on earth which can stay or repel death? Death took me away from my palace, and, alas, neither doors nor bars could save me from it. I have become a pledge, carrying my past with me for my redemption, and that which I have achieved remains.’
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he poignant epitaph on a young Muslim woman’s tombstone lamenting the impermanence of life rings true down the ages. Maimūnah, daughter of Hassān, son of ‘Ali al-Hudali, known as Ibn as-Susi was laid to rest on Thursday 16th day of the month of Sha’ban in the year 569 of the Islamic Calendar (21st of March 1174).
The Maimūnah Stone
Her intricately carved tombstone in the Kufic script, chiselled into the reverse of an upcycled ancient Roman slab of marble, is the only Islamic funerary stone in Malta of its period to be still intact in its original size and the only one which presents a date. The provenance of this singular artefact is shrouded in mystery. According to oral tradition, the tombstone was found in an area between Xewkija and Sannat on the Island on Gozo, which is still topographically referred to today as Ta’ Majmuna. However, the earliest reference to the stone is in a report by Count Ciantar in 1772, who saw it embedded in the Valletta courtyard of a local Antiquarian. In 1960 the Maimūnah stone was returned to Gozo, where it remains as the star exhibit in Heritage Malta’s Gozo Museum of Archaeology.
The Majmuna Stone
