Malta

Monday August 27, 2012 – VALLETTA, MALTA

Malta has a pretty intense history, which (surprisingly) extends beyond the knights of St. John.    Purely by accident, my tour of the island followed the islands history in chronological order.

The Neolithic temples at Ħaġar Qim (the “H” and the “Q” are silent and the “G” is soft.  Malti is a crazy-ass language) and Mnajdra (I don’t even know how to begin…) are impressively well preserved.  In order to maintain the site, the whole thing has been covered in a protective tent, which makes visiting in the heat of August quite pleasant.  Features of temple architecture reveal accommodations for animal sacrifices, burnt offerings and ritual oracles.  Recesses were used as depositories for sacrificial remains. Excavation has uncovered numerous statuettes of deities and highly decorated pottery.

No burials exist in the temple or the area surrounding Ħaġar Qim, nor have any human bones been discovered in Maltese temples. Bones of numerous sacrificial animals have been found. It is theorized that the Ħaġar Qim complex was built in three stages, beginning with the 'Old Temple' northern apses, followed by the 'New Temple', and finally the completion of the entire structure.  500 meters from Ħaġar Qim stands the Mnajdra megalithic temple.  The lowest temple is astronomically aligned and was probably used as an astronomical observation and/or calendrical site. On the vernal and the autumnal equinox sunlight passes through the main doorway and lights up the major axis. On the solstices sunlight illuminates the edges of megaliths to the left and right of this doorway. The temples contain furniture such as stone benches and tables that give clues to their use. Many artifacts were recovered from within the temples suggesting that these temples were used for religious purposes, perhaps to heal illness and/or to promote fertility.

Continuing through history, I drove to Mdina.  This ancient walled city is known as “The Silent City” because supposedly cars/motor vehicles are not allowed inside the city.  In practice, that isn’t entirely true.  Mdina is the pre-Knights of St. John capital and was built on the highest point on the island to protect the city from pirates.  The big deal here is St. Paul’s Cathedral.  According to legend, this is the spot where St. Paul himself converted the Roman governor to Christianity.  I did not actually go inside because the guidebooks pretty much only mention the exterior and I had to get back to Valetta, but the exterior is quite impressive.  The nearby museum houses religious art and vestments, which are pretty nice.  The city is primarily picturesque, so I took lots of artsy pictures for my Tumblr blog and headed back to Valetta.

[To be perfectly honest, I took a quick detour to Marsaxlokk.  It’s a fishing village.  It’s pretty.  There’s not much else to say about it.]

In Valletta, I visited St. John’s Co-Cathedral (that’s what it’s actually called.  It’s the seat of two different dioceses) and the Grand Master’s Palace.  The Grand Master’s Palace is questionably worth a visit.  It takes up an entire city block, which is enormous by Maltese standards, and is now the seat of parliament; so only a small part is open to the public.  It houses some lovely paintings, armor, and impressive rooms.  None of it is that unique.  It’s nice, but not “My trip to Malta will be incomplete without it” nice.  The Co-Cathedral is definitely worth it.  Hundreds of Knights are buried under the floor of the Cathedral and the slabs of marble marking their graves tell an impressive story.  The big draw of the Cathedral is Caravaggio’s The Beheading of St. John, housed in the oratory.  This painting actually got him excommunicated from the order of the knights of St. John because it was so different from anything they had seen before.  The chapels surrounding the main part of the church are very interesting, housing an array of art and relics (I’m pretty sure one of them has the entire body of St. Agatha or Agnes or something like that).  The Museum has some tapestries and vestments, so not really worth it.

Because I know you all wanted a picture of the Maltese Stock Exchange...

Malta really is a lovely country.  If you’ve ever read V., Pynchon conjures the look of tiny island nation quite accurately. I don’t have any mythology to close this post, so I’ll just recommend V. for anyone that hasn’t read it and has three months to try to get through it.  I cannot honestly describe what it’s about, so I’ll just let Wikipedia do the work for me.