Description Summarized in the Twin Ladies of the Xaghra Stone Circle This book is a tribute to the finest piece of prehistoric art ever found on Gozo: the famous Twin Ladies. They were unearthed in 1991 within the cavities of the Xaghra Stone Circle, a huge subterranean burial sanctuary, in a secluded part, called the ‘shrine’. Initially, the statuette triggered the most varied and bizarre interpretations, among which a ‘family portrait’! The author of this book, Veronica Veen, not only refuted these largely anachronistic proposals from the very beginning, but also offered well-founded and convincing alternatives in the press and in her book The Goddess of Malta: The Lady of the Waters and the Earth. With her truly multidisciplinary combination of symbolic anthropology, history of art and archaeology, and with support of her archaelogical partner, she could come in the present comprehensive book to a completely new picture of the fascinating Twins, its multi-layered symbolism, and its impact during the final years of the Temple Culture, about 2500BC. This culture was gradually slipping into a serious crisis then, as testified by the deteriorating health situation appearing from the burials. In a refined and thorough – and often also critical – discourse she makes credible that an emerging priestess-hood played a role in averting the crisis and maintaining the neolithic worldview of a network of life, in which everything is interconnected, and the importance of female values. Ultimately she comes to the surprising conclusion that the whole Temple Culture is ‘summarized’ in these – very Gozitan – Twin Ladies.
