Bones and snails

Today I've got two cheese pastizzi for lunch so I can do another blog in my waterfront cafe.  This morning I rode my bike over to Birzebbuga, the next fishing village to Marsaxlokk.  It is now developed as a freeport but has a pleasant waterfront and I wanted to see if I could find Ghar Dalem and the neolithic site.  I missed it going through, but on the way back I took a different road and found some signs.  People kept saying "Just go straight" but straight seemed to go on for ages.  Eventually I saw the temple sign which is a bit like stonehenge.

The track to the temple has been christianised.  At the start of the walking track where I left my bike there is a small garden with grottos and candles.  Very peaceful and there are benches for sitting as well as signs requesting that you refrain from picking flowers.  There has been rain recently and the rocky track up to the site was wet in places.  As I got to the top of the hill, there were more crosses and a man on a rocky slope was collecting snails which seem to climb up any vegetation they can find after rain.  I have noticed that several of the vegetable shops are selling live snails at the moment.  There were no signs and I walked on round the track until I came to an enclosed field that was greened up with grass and small wildflowers after the rain.  But I couldn't see any neolithic temples - just a junk metal yard across the fields of the valley.  As I turned around the field to come back, I realised that the rocky slope where the man was collecting snails was actually the temple and I could see some large stones placed inside an enclosing rubble wall but when went to walk up towards it, the man spoke to me in Malti and indicated that I couldn't go in.  I'm not quite sure what he said but it was something to do with the day or the time.  So I went back down the path enjoying the feeling that I had found it.

Back on my bike, I carried on up a major hill out of Birzebbuga and found Ghar Dalem caves.  This site has become well established as a place to visit and I was able to use my Malta Heritage membership to get in free (it usually costs 7 Euros).  The caves were formed out of the soft sandstone in ancient times and then during the ice age when Malta was ice free but very wet, a river crashed into the cave system and deposited it's load including the bones of elephant, hippos, deer, bears and wolves.  Malta was linked to Sicily at this time as the levels of the sea fluctuated with the ice age changes so the animals found were similar to those found in Sicily and Europe in general but had gone through a process of miniaturisation for the elephants and hippos or gigantism for some lizards.

The river eventually worked it's way into the valley leaving the caves dry so that they then developed later layers of human artifacts including pottery.  The caves themselves are interesting and after the recent rain, I could see stalagmites and stalactites in formation, but the museum itself is also fascinating in terms of the way in which it has developed over the years since the caves were first excavated in 1865.  In the old museum there are large cases covering the walls with row upon row of neatly wired up elephant teeth, hippo molars and other bones.  The new museum has a display that gives more general information about the formation of the caves and the history of the men who excavated and were curators of the museum.  The first curator looks more like a theatre entrepreneur and was vain enough to carve his initials into the cave as he excavated.  The second curator is the person who laid out the incredible display of bones in the old museum.

Tomorrow I'll go up to Valletta again for a lunch time concert in St Catherine's but I'm hoping to post a blog about the trip down through Italy soon.  The picture at the top of this post is of the entrance to Hasan's cave which I discovered today is the other end of part of the second cave formation that is associated with Ghar Dalem.