The Ħal Saflieni Hypogeum: Malta's Underground Necropolis

In 1902, a stonemason digging foundations for new houses in the Maltese town of Paola broke through into a void. Below lay chambers carved from solid rock, descending three levels, that people had been using to bury their dead a thousand years before the pyramids.

What is a hypogeum?

The word means an underground structure, usually for burial or worship. Ħal Saflieni is both. It is a complex of interconnecting chambers cut into the soft limestone, over an area of about 500 square meters and reaching about 11 meters deep, according to a Malta visitor guide. The upper level is the oldest and the lowest the most recent. Its halls imitate the architecture of Malta’s above-ground megalithic temples, with carved features and painted surfaces, according to the World Heritage database.

How old is it?

Very. The earliest remains date to about 4000 BC and the site was in use until about 2500 BC, based on pottery and human remains, according to the World Heritage database and Wikipedia; one reference site gives a later end date. That places it in Malta’s Temple Period, when the islands’ builders raised the stone temples at Ġgantija, Ħaġar Qim, and Tarxien. For comparison, Stonehenge’s main stones were raised around 2500 BC and the Great Pyramid was built around 2560 BC. The Hypogeum was in use for more than a millennium before either.

What was found inside?

People, above all. Excavations led first by Father Emmanuel Magri from 1903 and then by Sir Themistocles Zammit recovered the remains of an estimated 6,000 to 7,000 individuals, along with personal ornaments, beads, amulets, and pottery, according to the sources. Most of the bones lay in the lower chambers, mixed together, which suggests the dead were placed in the chambers over generations rather than given individual graves. UNESCO’s summary, quoted by the World Heritage database, says the site was probably conceived as a sanctuary and later became an ossuary.

The most famous find is the Sleeping Lady, a small clay figure of a heavy-hipped woman lying on her side on a couch, now in the National Museum of Archaeology in Valletta. No one knows what she represents; eternal sleep and death are among the guesses, according to a travel writer who visited.

What is the Oracle Room?

A small side chamber with an unusual acoustic property: a low male voice spoken into a niche resonates through the whole complex. Researchers have run sound experiments there, and the name reflects the idea that it was used for ritual, though no bones were found in it and its purpose is unknown.

Why are visits so restricted?

Because people damage it. The breath and body heat of visitors raise humidity and carbon dioxide and encourage algae on the painted surfaces, and the site was closed from 1991 to 2000 for conservation. Since reopening, Heritage Malta admits only 80 visitors a day, in groups of ten on guided tours of about 45 minutes, with the microclimate strictly regulated; the limit was set after consultation with UNESCO, and Heritage Malta has said it cannot and will not exceed it. Tickets sell out weeks or months ahead, and children under six are not admitted, according to National Geographic.

What does the site tell us?

That organized care for the dead is older than writing. The people who cut these chambers had no metal tools and no written language, yet they spent generations building an underground place for their dead that mirrored their temples for the gods, and they left the dead with ornaments and figurines. What they believed is unknown. That they believed something about the dead is written in the rock. See why ancient societies buried objects with their dead and death around the world.

This is a history article. Figures such as the number of people buried at a site are estimates that vary between sources, and visiting rules change; check the site’s official page before planning a visit.