Marsaxlokk, Hypogeum


Sunday, March 11, 2018

Joyce and I love markets, and we always try to visit them when traveling; we get a feel for a place from its markets.  Our day started with a visit to Marsaxlokk, a fishing village on a bay which has a widely known Sunday fish market.  It was jammed.  The fishermen (all men) go out overnight and bring in the catch early in the morning.  Many of the boats are painted in a traditional manner, and the bay is beautiful:




Here’s a boat up on the shore:



The path along the shore is jammed with merchants, almost all women, selling the catch and shouting out to the customers walking from one seller to another:




Many of the merchants have signs to let you know the price and how and where the fish was caught:



Here’s an eel being weighed:



There were small sharks for sale:



The tray of squid really was this color:



There were a few stalls selling vegetables, fruit, and trinkets.  After wandering the market, we drove to one of the most anticipated visits of the trip, the Ħal-Saflieni Hypogeum.  This is a giant underground structure built in prehistoric times, which functioned as a burial site for the human population here.  It was carved out of the limestone using non-metallic tools, and decorated with designs in red ochre.  It was simply amazing.  It was discovered in 1902 by workmen digging a cistern, and is under an ordinary residential group of buildings.  Here’s the entrance:



The appearance mimics that of the temples we’ve seen.  Tours are booked up months in advance, as only ten people are allowed in every half-hour.  No photos are allowed; these two are from the internet:




It’s truly incredible to imagine how this was done by prehistoric people.  After our visit to the Hypogeum, we went back to the hotel for lunch, and in the mid-afternoon we had two one-hour lectures, the first on the Maltese economy, the second on Medieval Malta.

In brief: Malta’s economy is booming, unemployment is very low, foreign investment is very high.  The economy is a service economy, with 2/3 of the economy being service-based and tourism accounting for 25% of the GNP.  Of manufactured exports, 50% of the total value is accounted for by one company, ST Microelectronics.  Other problems include the 30% of the workforce who are government employees, but there are things which explain this.  Education is free from pre-K through graduate school.  Health care is free for all.  Everyone gets a pension, but the maximum pension is 1000 euros/month, so people save, and save a lot, for retirement.  Maltese are frugal and the savings rate is very high.  It was very interesting!

After a coffee break, we had a talk on the history of Malta, focusing on medieval times, but starting with the invasion of the Vandals in the early 400s and finishing with independence in 1964.  It was a whirlwind of facts, and included Romans, Vandals, Goths, Muslims, Byzantines, Normans, Aragons, the Inquisition, the Kingdom of Sicily, Tunisians, Ottomans, and the Hospitaller Order of St. John, Emperor Charles V of Spain (and of the Holy Roman Empire), Napoleon, French occupation, British colonialism, and more.  The bottom line is that everyone who ever invaded any part of the Mediterranean was probably here.  Astonishing.

Tomorrow Mdina and the Catacombs.

Comments

  1. Ralph P. LockeMarch 13, 2018 at 1:13 PM

    Wow, I wonder what those prehistoric red-ochre drawings were intended to mean. They almost seem like abstract patterns, but maybe echo plant life? I've never heard of these, whereas the Lascaux cave paintings are reproduced in books and magazines all the time. What other cultural wonders do we tend not to hear about?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Victor PoleshuckMarch 13, 2018 at 1:24 PM

      Even more impressive, the ochre is not native to Malta; the closest place it's found is Sicily.

      Delete

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