Daniel Cilia writes:
As I start to write this on the ferry boat on the way to Gozo I am pleased to overhear the people on the table next to me discussing the Times of Malta front page story about the passing away of my mentor and friend David Trump. One of the youths was telling the others that Dr Trump “… kien arkeologist kbir li għamel ħafna ġid għall-istorrja ta’ Malta’ (he was an important archaeologist who did a lot of good to Malta). David would have been pleased.
From the first time I met him briefly in 1996, introduced by Ann Monserrat, and later on in 2001, when we started to collaborate on a number of books, his love for Malta’s history, especially its pre-history, was addictive.
His enthusiasm and knowledge on the subject was boundless. He described himself as ‘I am a pot man’, referring to his interest in the pottery found in most archaeological sites. David had put together the Maltese prehistoric chronological table of the ‘periods’ based on the pottery’s style, decoration and type of clay used in ritual and in everyday life.
Each period was named after the temple site where the pottery was recognised or was found most aboundingly. On many occasions visiting a temple site, David would screen the ground for pottery sherds (broken fragments), pick one up and after brushing off the soil would declare it of one period or another. He was such an expert in this. David always insisted that Malta’s prehistoric pottery from 5000 BC till about 700 BC has some of the most beautiful ceramic both in shape and decorations. He hoped to see a room at the National Museum of Archaeology in Valletta dedicated to the best of this material, now hidden away in the museum’s store rooms. In the same museum, he helped with the refurbishing of the rooms dedicated to the Bronze Age period and the room about Cart Ruts. He was very pleased with the results he accomplished there with Heritage Malta’s staff.
David always looked forward to visiting Malta. In the last few years, my companion Louise and I had the privilege of hosting him and Bridget, his wife, at our house in Birkirkara.
Bridget, also an archaeologist, supported David throughout his career, helping him with his excavations and writing since they met in the beginning of the 1960s during Gozo’s excavations at the Bronze Age site of In-Nuffara.
He tried to combine his trips to Malta with a talk, presentation or excursions organised with Heritage Malta, the Mġarr local council and a number of NGOs. He loved teaching about Malta’s prehistoric periods through his talks and his books. As many can vouch, the way he presented the subject was always entertaining and straight to the point.
We discussed and agreed to disagree on many subjects. Yet in our publications together we always came out with a result which we both accepted.
He disliked the pseudo archeologists who want to make the prehistoric temples part of the fable of Atlantis or other mythological stories. David always insisted that the oldest free-standing architecture in the world does not need any ‘make-up’. “They can stand on their own”… pun intended! Yet he was always open to new ideas and suggestions. Many people would come up with some hypothetical theory and ask him for his opinion. He never made fun of them and always said that any idea was valid so long as it was based on anthropological and scientific research. David’s sense of chivalry was evident in all he did.
Some years ago, our prehistoric temples lost their ‘oldest free-standing’ title with the discovery that the Neolithic architecture of Göbekli Tepe in Turkey dates back to 9,000 BC. David read an article in the prestigious archaeological magazine Antiquity, mentioning that the Turkish buildings were not free-standing at all but hewn out of the debris accumulated on the mountaintop settlement site. He copied the article and sent it out to the academic world, and also wrote a letter to The Sunday Times of Malta on October 3, 2010. After describing the article in question he ends his letter:
“ …we can continue to claim proudly that our temples are now once more rightly the world’s first free-standing stone architecture – at least until such time as other claimants are discovered, of course.”
I put an emphasis on his use of the word ‘our temples’. They were certainly his temples!
He really loved our islands, their mysterious past, which offers more questions than answers. This was especially true of the Maltese cart ruts phenomena. The sheer amount of these ruts spread all over Malta and Gozo is amazing. During my photographic flights I managed to notice ’new’ ones. Others were discovered through the clearing of fields for building or road construction. On each of David’s visits to Malta, I was lucky enough to accompany him to study these ‘new’ ruts to add to his catalogue, which hopefully will be published soon posthumously.
David’s last planned visit to my studio in Italy to finalise the work on this catalogue and other books he had in the pipeline had to be postponed because he insisted he wanted to go to vote for Britain to remain in the EU.
Eventually his health deteriorated to such an extent that he cancelled his visit and instead we worked online through Skype and e-mail. His sense for urgency to finish his books makes me now believe that he knew his biography Trowel & Barrow was coming to its conclusion.