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Ice Age bones handed over to national collection
Ice Age bones handed over to national collection
A fossil collection of Quaterny, with refers to Ice Age bones, dating back thousands of years, has been officially handed over to Heritage Malta, to be included in the national collection.
The collection was handed over by the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage and is comprised of around 21 items, including elephant bones and teeth, as well as the teeth of hippopotami! Some of these items have been traced back to Ta’ Żuta, the limits of Ħad-Dingli and Għar Dalam.
The fossils were intended to be auctioned but were then requisitioned and retrieved after a police investigation. They will now be part of the national collection, ensuring their long-term conservation, care and controlled public access.
Photo: heritage Malta
Cultural heritage in Malta was statutorily regulated in 1910, by the Protection of Antiquities Ordinance, which was replaced in 1925 by the Antiquities Protection Act. These have since been replaced by the Cultural Heritage Act of 2002, updated in 2019, which states that any person who, even by chance, discovers objects of cultural heritage value, is to inform the national regulator immediately.
