Embattled Malta, Tarxien Temples (3/10)

We had quite a thunderstorm last night which was great as it cleared the air a little. We were off to find the Malta at War Museum and the Tarxien Temples today, both on the opposite side of the Grand Harbour from Valletta. This meant a number of bus changes again, but we didn't have to wait to long for any of them which was good. The war museum was located in the walls of the original bastion of Vittoriosa, one of the Three Cities opposite Valletta. The Three Cities is made up of Senglea, Vittoriosa (formerly Birgu) and Cospicua. During the Great Siege, the inhabitants of fortified Senglea and Birgu showed great courage in surviving the onslaught and it was only after the seige that Cospicua was also fortified, and this new fortification enclosed all three cities with massive bastions, hence the grouping. These cities predate Valletta, and the Order (Knights of St John) had its original seat of government here, but after it was transferred to Valletta the Three Cities remained the base for the Order's shipyards and navy.

Part of the walls and moat (now part utilised with more
buildings) of the Three Cities

The Knights must have kept their people very busy as there are bastions everywhere around Valletta, and you never know what they are hiding.  It is to be expected that they have guardhouses and weapons stores and this is where this museum is housed. This time we had to pay direct entry into the Museum. (Up until now most of the museums and historical sites we had visited had been on a Heritage Malta ticket which made it certainly worth buying.) We knew that Malta had received the George Medal for its fortitude during WWII, but were short on details, so we hoped this visit would remedy that by giving us some of the history. 
 At the beginning of the war, Malta was almost abandoned by the British in favour of Alexandria because the French were supposed to look after the Western Mediterranean, but when France capitulated, Britain realised that Malta must be held at all costs. It was recognised by both sides that Malta held a very strategic position in the Mediterranean. It was from here that the Allies could attack Axis supplies to Rommel in North Africa, so Hitler desperately wanted it neutralised (he needed Libyan oil as well), and Britain was equally desperate to maintain it as an air and naval base. The situation on Malta sat on a knife edge throughout the three years they were under attack, and it became more desperate as the siege lengthened. Food rations dropped to under 2000 calories a day, there was little fuel, and clothing became scarce. On the military front, sometimes there were no planes in flying condition to scramble to oppose the incoming bombers. Even though more aircraft eventually arrived, a submarine base was created, and naval power was strengthened, the siege of Malta wasn't lifted until Rommel was defeated at El Alamein and Allied forces were landed in North Africa in Vichy French Morocco and Algeria. At the start of the war, most of Malta's population live in Valletta (23,000 in 0.65 km2) and the Three Cities (18,000 in 1.3km2), and these areas suffered the heaviest, most concentrated, and most sustained bombing in history. For the density of population the casualties were relatively light - 1300 killed. But the privations suffered were felt most in the young and the old. Infant mortality rose to 256 per 1000 births. Many Maltese left the cities and fled to the country. Those who remained were eventually housed in an amazing network of dugouts in the cliffs surrounding the Grand Harbour. Some of what we have seen when moving about the island started to make sense. 

The view from one bastion to another, and yes,
those are yacht masts in between - the yachts are
in the narrow harbour.

By the end of the war, 30,000 buildings had been destroyed. Britain offered the Maltese assisted passage to emigrate to Australia or Canada. Most of those who took up the option were the able-bodied younger generation and this is why there are almost more Maltese living in Australia then there are in Malta. This may also account for the land we have seen which appears un-worked, and for the number of buildings which seem abandoned The older generation stayed, and when they passed away there was no-one on the island to take over. Also, farming here would be very hard. There is little arable land, fields are small requiring manual labour to till the soil, and the climate is harsh. Having endured the hardships of years of war, many would have taken the opportunity to move away from a difficult rural life, or a life which lay in ruins in Valletta. We may be a bit harsh in this assessment as we are seeing the land at the end of summer and they have been expecting rain for several weeks now. (No photographs allowed in the museum)

The museum itself covered many different aspects of the war, but perhaps the most interesting were the underground tunnels in which the Maltese sheltered during the bombing and which were now part of the museum. We had to wear hard hats to go down, and with good reason as we bumped our heads a number of times on the ceiling of the small tunnels. (May not have been an issue for the Maltese as we haven't seen so many short people in a community). There were tunnels everywhere, and these included a small hospital. It would not have been a very pleasant place to stay, but then being outside was no fun either.
On our way down to the harbour from the museum we walked past the Inquisition Museum. This was included in the Heritage Malta ticket so we decided to investigate. It wasn't huge and was housed in the building which the Inquisitors lived and worked in until Bonaparte told them to go away. They were no better or no worse than the East German Stasi or the KGB, in that you were expected to let the authorities know when you had witnessed something which was against church dogma. We found out that less than ten percent of individuals were tortured (very good of them!!!) and most punishments were not physical (just stretching!). At least there were no torture implements on show, but the building did include the prison cells. These were rebuilt after one chap dug his way out eight times! (The Count of Monte Cristo was an amateur by these standards!).  

Temples at Tarxien.  Partly restored

After checking out the Grand Harbour from the other side, we set off to catch the bus to the prehistoric Tarxien temples. Fortunately Allan followed his intuition and we got off at the right stop.  This temple complex is the youngest of these ancient ones on Malta, and not surprisingly, the most sophisticated. Again the floor plan is a series of apsidal rooms grouped around a central passageway, although here there is no mention of there being an astrological component to their alignment. These temples have more decoration, and more niches than the others, There are also several "altars" which have small niches on top of them, and one was found to have flint knives and animal bones in them. There were also several large vessels and the remains of a huge statue of a large-bottomed sitting figure found. The decoration is mostly variations on a spiral theme, but beautifully worked. Under a number of the megaliths have been found large balls of worked stone, and some have theorised that these were used to move the stone slabs into position from the quarry. The society which built the temples on Malta and Gozo seems to have been home grown, existed for just over a thousand years then suddenly disappeared. During the Bronze Age, the Tarxien temples were used for funerary purposes and turned into a cremation cemetery, and finally abandoned. This group came to light again in 1913 when farmers complained to an archeologist, working on a site nearby, that their ploughs kept hitting large blocks of stone. In the 1950's more work was done on the site, and there was a lot of reconstruction carried out. Many of the standing megaliths were capped with concrete, and some stone walls re-erected, but the essence of the site has been maintained and further work is currently being carried out.

An inner part of the temple at Tarxien.  Because of
drawings on the walls it is thought that this might
 be an entrance for pigs, perhaps for sacrifice

From here it was back into Valletta to go to St John's Co-cathedral. This was the original cathedral built by the Order of St John when Valletta became their base. Unfortunately we arrived too late. So then Jill wanted to go to the post office before it closed at five. Ha ha – firstly it was difficult to find as it was not well signposted and then it closed at 3.45pm! So, we headed off to walk down to the waterfront and came across a real French crêperie (set up in a space just wide enough for the lady and her hotplate to be side by side). This lifted the spirits - a proper crêpe smothered with home-made salted caramel. We shall return! 

Looking across the harbour towards
our accommodation

We did get to the waterfront and looked across Marsamxett Harbour towards where we are staying. This is the harbour on the other side of the peninsula that Valletta is built on - Grand Harbour on the south east and Marsamxett Harbour on the north west. We also found a post card seller who also sold stamps so the day ended not so badly after all. Then it was back home for a bit, before wandering out to dinner. We thought that we might catch the bus around to another area of restaurants north of us, but the buses were full, so we gave up on that idea. We suspect that it may also be the nightclub area and it was Friday night. Whilst eating dinner, lightening started to play in the sky, so we decided to head home before it started raining. The storm broke not long after and we lost all power and lights. We suspected it was a fuse, but the fuse box in the apartment wasn't the one which would switch on our lights, so it was off to bed after letting our landlord know of the situation.