Malta (island) in an archipelago in the central Mediterranean, some south of the Italian island of Sicily across the Malta Channel. Malta is located east of its sister islands of Gozo and Comino. It lies on the Malta plateau, a shallow shelf formed from the high points of a land bridge between Sicily and North Africa that became isolated as sea levels rose after the last Ice Age. Malta is therefore situated in the zone between the Eurasian and African tectonic plates. Numerous bays along the indented coastline of the islands provide good harbours. The landscape consists of low hills with terraced
Greeks in Malta proposed that the original inhabitants of Malta Island and Gozo were Cretan immigrants. However, the Ancient Greeks appear not to have included either island in their colonization of the Mediterranean, perhaps owing to their lack of natural resources. They used Malta for commerce, but the archipelago was taken over and colonized by Phoenicians, then by Carthage. Gozo is perhaps the mythical island of Ogygia, described in the "Odyssey", which may attest that groups of Mycenians once settled there. The main island was known in Greece under the name "Melite" (); one theory is that the name "Malta" is a derivative