In Malta, a Study Suggests Romans and Other Classical-Era People Made Much of 2,628 Stone Tracks

Malta has thousands of parallel grooves cut into its rock, often called cart ruts, and nobody has agreed on who made them. A University of Malta study now argues that people of the Classical period, the Phoenician, Punic, Roman and Byzantine eras, made much of the network. Joel Grima, the author, found no reliable evidence that conclusively dates any individual pair of tracks to prehistoric times.

The scale of the network

The study counts 2,628 distinct tracks stretching about 49.65 km. It examined 228 archaeological sites and documented 155 of them with 3D models built from drone and ground photographs. Another 82 historically recorded sites are now destroyed or inaccessible. In total, 310 sites are known across Malta and Gozo. One of the densest, Misraħ Għar il-Kbir, nicknamed “Clapham Junction,” covers an area of about 80 by 100 metres.

The evidence for a Classical date

At the Domus Romana, near ancient Melite, a pair of ruts runs along a street lined with Roman buildings, and several Roman road surfaces lie above the grooves. Grima considers the tracks there unlikely to predate Phoenician or Punic development of the city. At il-Qortin in Marsa, grooves cross the threshold stones of a warehouse beside the Grand Harbour, which fits wheeled traffic serving commercial buildings. At Ta’ Laroka, a route crosses an earlier quarry floor and was later cut by another phase of quarrying.

The study also found 112 cases where quarrying cut through existing tracks and 17 where grooves continue across quarry floors. About 34 percent of 1,690 burial features lie within 50 metres of a documented route, which fits the Punic and Roman habit of building tombs beside roads. Sea level has risen about 1.3 metres over two millennia, and submerged grooves at Birżebbuġa now sit about 30 cm below present mean sea level.

What the study does not prove

Earlier origins for individual routes cannot be entirely excluded, and the study does not prove that every track has the same date. Grima favors the interpretation that wheeled vehicles made the grooves, but that remains an interpretation.

Source: Grima, J., “The chronology of the Maltese cart ruts: A critical evaluation of the available dating evidence,” Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports vol. 76, article 106134 (2026), DOI 10.1016/j.jasrep.2026.106134. Reported by Arkeonews on 21 October 2026. Photo of the tracks at Misraħ Għar il-Kbir: Simon Burchell, via Wikimedia Commons.