Only a few years ago, an archaeological tour from Malta visited the southern coast and shores of the large Tyrrhenian island of Sardinia, west of Cagliari.

 At Nora, in the south-western corner of this large island, two complementary naturaltrading and careening harbours were evident. Both harbours functioned as entrepôt or exchanging and trading centres for our Phoenician ancestors and predecessors, possibly with Etruscan traders.

But a major landfall for these Phoenician traders was in Malta, at the commodious harbours of Marsaxlokk Bay (picture) , which faced south-east, a natural stopover for ancient boats and their crews and merchants.

This bay, with its formerly extensive sandy beaches, from Kalafrana and Birżebbuġa to modern Marsaxlokk proper, was, to our forebears, like a gift from the gods. They could haul their sturdy boats ashore on the sandy beaches and make offerings to the goddess Ashtart, their protectress, at her temple at Tas-Silġ or primitive Bir Rica, one kilometre up the hill.

Marsaxlokk, Malta’s south-eastern harbour, functioned then as an ideal and major site for stopping over, for taking on water and sundry works of bartering and exchange with the Maltese locals. A keen observer, or an experienced archaeologist, like Anthony Bonanno, expressed his view that the large inner harbour facing the modern church at Marsaxlokk functioned as an important ‘cothon’. It is still so today.

This novel and interesting theory bears investigating. Marsaxlokk harbour seems to have been favoured, above Grand Harbour and Marsamxett harbour, for hauling boats ashore. Phoenician traders used our inner harbours regularly and liberally.

The Maltese language has two terms to describe an enclosure, sometimes reserved, within a larger harbour. These are a menqa, sometimes enclosed by a low wall, as at Grand Harbour and Marsalforn.

In the Grand Harbour and in Marsaxlokk, the deep and wide inlet within the harbours is known as Il-magħluq, ‘the enclosure’.