Destinations: Beneath Malta

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Visitors to Malta and Gozo, 60 miles off the southern coast of Sicily, are often immediately impressed by the islands’ honey-colored limestone basilicas erected 500 years ago by the Knights of St. John. But you have to go back 5,000 years to reach Malta’s earliest, and perhaps most awe-inspiring, temples—some predating Stonehenge and the Giza pyramids by 1,000 years.

The most unusual of the two-dozen megalithic temples dotting the islands is a large underground catacomb known as the Hypogeum, located in Paola, a suburb of the Maltese capital of Valletta.

During the second half of the fourth millennium B.C., the Hypogeum (a word derived from the Greek ipogaina, or underground chamber) was constructed by unknown Neolithic people. Using antler picks and stone mallets, these builders enlarged natural fault lines in the walls of subterranean limestone caves, creating a series of rock-cut tombs linked by corridors that covered more than 1,600 square feet.

Until a century ago, no one suspected that a vast mortuary temple lay beneath the streets of Paola. In 1902 construction workers digging a cistern broke through the uppermost walls of an underground structure. The company told no one about the find, however, and simply used the site as a dump for building debris. By 1905, however, word had leaked out about the existence of an underground temple. The Maltese government appointed a Jesuit priest, Father Emmanuel Magri, to investigate the site. After his death in 1907, Malta’s preeminent archaeologist, Themistocles Zammit, launched a thorough excavation.

Zammit determined that the temple was built on three levels. The roughly-hewn chambers nearest the surface were the oldest in the complex, while the lower levels had been carved out over a period of 1,000 years. In the lowest level, Zammit discovered the remains of thousands of human bodies (archaeologists estimate that as many as 7,000 people were entombed in the Hypogeum) and numerous grave goods: beads made of shell, amulets fashioned from fossilized teeth and gracefully wrought pottery.

If the Hypogeum was used as a necropolis, the middle level suggests it was also used as a sanctuary. The design of this middle level was clearly meant to mimic Malta’s above-ground megalithic temples—with its carved walls, trilithon (three-stone) portals, kidney-shaped apses and altar niches. What sets the Hypogeum apart from the other Maltese temples, however, is its soaring corbelled ceilings, which offer a cathedral-like enclosure of sacred space. No other prehistoric Maltese structure retains its roof.

Archaeologists have 054found evidence of ancient ritual activity in the Hypogeum. Traces of red-ochre paint—the magical color of blood, sacrifice and death—decorate the walls in spirals, stripes and dotted patterns. A rectangular window-like “oracle hole” in a chamber wall is said to produce a strange effect: Whereas deep male voices reverberate throughout the chamber when sounded from behind the oracle hole, high-pitched female voices scarcely make a sound. Perhaps priest-oracles once sat behind the hole, issuing pronouncements and dream interpretations to all who sought their guidance.

“Fat lady” statuettes have been recovered from the Hypogeum, as they have been from other Maltese temples. These obese female figurines suggest that the ancient inhabitants of Malta worshiped a mother goddess who represented the fertile, life-giving forces of nature. The sleeping goddess shown, now on display in the National Museum of Archaeology in Valletta, was discovered in the Hypogeum’s mid-level.

Unlike Malta’s freestanding stone temples, which remain vulnerable to both weathering and human depredation, the Hypogeum has benefited from an elaborate, decade-long conservation and management program. The site was closed in 1992 when it was determined that visitors’ exhalations were destroying fragile 055wall art. (Moisture in human breath had combined with the minerals and salts in the Hypogeum’s corraline limestone walls to create a corrosive mixture.) Airlocks, drainage systems and automated light switches were installed to minimize moisture problems. And most importantly, new walkways, buffer zones and strict limits on the numbers of visitors were put in place. Since the Hypogeum reopened in 2000, only 200 tourists, organized in groups of ten every half-hour, can visit the site each day.

Visitors to Malta and Gozo, 60 miles off the southern coast of Sicily, are often immediately impressed by the islands’ honey-colored limestone basilicas erected 500 years ago by the Knights of St. John. But you have to go back 5,000 years to reach Malta’s earliest, and perhaps most awe-inspiring, temples—some predating Stonehenge and the Giza pyramids by 1,000 years. The most unusual of the two-dozen megalithic temples dotting the islands is a large underground catacomb known as the Hypogeum, located in Paola, a suburb of the Maltese capital of Valletta. During the second half of the fourth millennium B.C., […]