VISITING THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF ARCHAEOLOGY

Arriving to the National Museum of Archaeology

Today, The Grandma has received a great surprised. Joseph de Ca'th Lon has arrived to Valetta to join her in her searching of Corto Maltese.

Joseph, a great expert in archaeology, has taken profit of his arrival to go to the National Museum of Archaeology with The Grandma to know the Maltese history, especially the Prehistorical age, and see the Sleeping Lady of Malta, a national treasure.

More information: Maltese History & Heritage

The National Museum of Archaeology is a Maltese museum of prehistoric artifacts, located in Valletta. It is managed by Heritage Malta.

The National Museum of Archaeology is housed in the Auberge de Provence, in Republic Street, Valletta. The building, an example of fine Baroque architecture, was built in 1571 and followed a plan by local architect Ġilormu Cassar, who directed the building of most important buildings in the early days of Valletta. The building’s façade is imprinted with Mannerist characteristics usually associated with Cassar.

The Auberge de Provence was house to the Knights of the Order of St John originating from Provence, and displays beautiful architectural features. Of particular note is the Grand Salon, with its richly painted walls and wooden beamed ceiling.

Memories of the Auberge during the WWII

The Auberge de Provence was opened as the National Museum in 1958 by Agatha Barbara, then the Minister of Education. 

The museum originally included the archaeological collection on the ground floor and fine arts on the first floor. The first curator was Captain Charles G. Zammit, the son of the eminent Maltese archaeologist Sir Themistocles Zammit.

The Grand Salon on the first floor is the most ornate room in the building. The Knights used it for business discussions, and as a refectory and banqueting hall, where they sat at long tables according to seniority.

More information: Heritage Malta

When Napoleon expelled the Knights from Malta in 1798 the Auberge was leased to the Malta Union Club. Though the lease was to expire in 2002, on 12 August 1955 the Auberge was assigned to house Malta's National Museum.

The Grandma at Auberge d'Auvergne et Provence

In 1974, the fine arts collection was moved to the National Museum of Fine Arts, newly established in the Admiralty House building in South Street, Valletta, and the National Museum was renamed the National Museum for Archaeology. 

The museum was refurbished and upgraded in 1998. Artifacts were placed in climate-controlled displays so that the exhibition met with current conservation standards. The Museum exhibits a spectacular range of artefacts dating back to Malta’s Neolithic Period (5000 BC) up to the Phoenician Period (400 BC). On display are the earliest tools used by the prehistoric people to facilitate their daily tasks and representations of animal and human figures; elements which not only show the great artistic skills of the first dwellers of the island but also gives us an insight of their daily lives.

More information: Malta Culture Guide

Highlights include the Sleeping Lady, from the Ħal Saflieni Hypogeum, the Venus of Malta, from Ħaġar Qim, bronze daggers, recovered from the Bronze Age layers at Tarxien Temples, the Horus & Anubis pendant and the anthropomorphic sarcophagus, both belonging to the Phoenician Period.

The Grandma & Joseph with The Sleeping Lady

The Museum provides the visitor with a good introduction to the prehistory and early history of the Maltese Island and acts as a catalyst to the other archaeological sites in Malta.

Works are currently in progress to include another hall dedicated to the Punic period and others dedicated to the Roman and Byzantine periods in Malta.

There are some important reasons to visit this amazing museum:

-There are unique display of renowned valuable artefacts such as the Sleeping Lady, the Venus of Malta and the Horus and Anubis pendant.

-It serves as a good introduction to prehistory and early history in Malta.

-It puts Malta’s archaeological sites in context.

-It's housed in one of the most elaborately decorated Baroque buildings in Valletta.

The ground floor of the museum exhibits prehistoric artefacts from the Maltese islands, from the Għar Dalam phase (5200 BC), the earliest appearance of settlement on the island, up to the Tarxien phase (2500 BC).

More information: Venus of Malta

The museum is divided in two important periods: the Early Neolithic Period Room (5200–3800 BC) and the Temple Period Rooms (3800–2500 BC).

The Sleeping Lady

The Early Neolithic Period Room (5200–3800 BC) exhibits artifacts from the early Neolithic Period, including decorated pottery from the Għar Dalam, Grey Skorba, Red Skorba and Żebbuġ phases. Of particular importance are the Red Skorba figurines, the earliest local representations of the human figure and the predecessors of the statues of later temple periods. The exhibition features a reconstruction of the rock-cut tombs that were a characteristic of the early Neolithic period in Malta. Rock-cut tombs reached their climax in burials like the Ħal Saflieni Hypogeum and the Xagħra Stone Circle; photographs of both sites are displayed in the museum.

The Temple Period Rooms (3800–2500 BC) show examples of architecture, human representation and other items that date from the Mġarr, Ġgantija, Saflieni and Tarxien phases of Maltese prehistory. The temples that were built at this time are considered to be the world’s first free standing monuments and are listed in the UNESCO World Heritage List.

The Grandma is visiting the Tarxien ruins

The museum exhibits numerous corpulent statues representing human bodies unearthed from temple excavations, along with phallic representations. 

Until recently the statues were called Mother Goddesses, Fat Ladies, Deities and Priests among other names, but it is now argued that these statues were probably asexual and represented a human being, irrespective of whether it was male or female. The representations vary in size and shape, with the largest being as tall as 2.7 m and the smallest 4 mm.

The discovery of temple altars and corpulent human representations suggests that some type of cult existed on the islands of Malta and Gozo in prehistory. Given the corpulency of the statues it may be that the cult was tied to a fertility rite. Fertility at this time must have been very important since, apart from family growth, it also meant the reproduction of crops and animals.

More information: Jaunting Jen

The exhibition includes altars excavated from the Tarxien Temples that were probably used for animal sacrifices. They were brought to the museum for conservation reasons.

Iż-żmien hu l-akbar għalliem.
Time is the greatest teacher. 

Maltese Proverbs