In my first article entitled "Lead anchor stock discovered" (The Sunday Times, December 3) I explained why I think that the site of St Paul's shipwreck was actually Salina Bay. I am not the first to present this notion. Bernard A. Vassallo, in an article entitled "Name pointers to St Paul's shipwreck" (The Sunday Times, September 24, 1989) had actually indicated Qawra Point and I am sure that many others are of the same opinion.
I would like to thank Fr Joseph Cilia, OFM Conv., and Fr Egidio Mizzi, OFM Conv., who have researched a good number of different editions of the Bible in different languages for the various translations of the famous "topos dithalassos" in Acts 27:41. Some versions state "where two seas meet" while others refer to "where two currents meet".
They quote comments by Fr Donat Spiteri (v. 41 - sikka bejn zewg kurrenti. Il-kelma Griega topos dithalassos tfisser letteralment "bicca art bejn zewgt ibhra" tista' tkun sikka tal-blat mahruga 'l fuq il barra mill-ilma jew tar-ramel migmugh minn zewg kurrenti fil-bahar (bl-Ingliz, sandbank jew sand-dune) - v. 41: a reef between two currents. The Greek term topos dithalassos, literally translated as "a small land between two seas", could refer to a rocky reef coming out above sea level or a sandbank created by two currents (in English, sandbank or sand-dune).
From the various translations of Acts 27:41 we find the ship running aground or hitting a shoal or reef or sandbar or they got the ship to land. As a diver who has seen the seabed in St Paul's Bay and Salina Bay, the sandbank or sand-dune is very interesting as it would make Salina Bay a lot more probable. It is only in Salina Bay where one can find sandbanks rising from the bottom and in some places coming close to the sea surface.
The interpretation by Fr Spiteri as to the possible location and again I will reproduce his comment in Maltese: 38. Lemhu art bi xtajta fiha. Mal-kosta fuq in-naha tal-grigal ta' Malta hawn bajjiet ta' din ix-xorta: Il-Bajja ta' San Pawl, il-Mistra, il-Bajja tal-Mellieha...Skond it-tradizzjoni hi l-Bajja ta' San Pawl li toqrob l-aktar lejn din id-deskrizzjoni u tgawdi dan l-unur.
(38. they did observe a bay with a beach. On the northeastern coast of Malta there are such bays: St Paul's Bay, Mistra, Mellieha Bay... According to tradition, St Paul's Bay fits better this description and enjoys this honour.)
It makes little difference historically in which of these bays, and we can include Salina Bay, St Paul was actually shipwrecked, since they are all in close proximity to one another and they show continuation with tradition and the Bible, i.e. that St Paul was welcomed and hosted for three days by Publius in the place believed to be San Pawl Milqi (literally, "St Paul welcomed") in Burmarrad.
In actual fact Salina Bay is the closest bay to San Pawl Milqi. Looking down from the chapel at San Pawl Milqi, one has a full view of Salina Bay and any ship in distress would have been easily spotted, giving the "barbarians" a better chance of welcoming and assisting the 276 men swimming for shore and later creating a fire to keep them warm.
There have been various other explanations as to where this shipwreck has actually occurred. The German Heinz Warnecke claims that it was near Cephalonia, while the Benedictine priest Ignatio Georgi identified Mljet off the Dalmatian coast. Biagio Galea has ably rebutted these arguments in his articles in Lehen is-Sewwa (August 26, September 2, 1989).
The best defence I have found of our Pauline tradition comes from Professor Mario Buhagiar: "A good case for Malta was made by Captain James Smith who in 1856 published in London The Voyage and Shipwreck of St Paul. Smith had a sound knowledge of sailing boats and he argued on navigational evidence. Most of his observations are still valid, but the question remains open.
Perhaps Malta's greatest claim does not, after all, derive from a scrutiny of the ill-starred journey but rather from the simple fact that from Melite the shipwrecked party departed for Syracuse to continue its journey to Rome from there ... Had the shipwreck taken place on Meleda such an itinerary would not have made geographical sense.
The logical stop would have been Brindisium or some other port along the Adriatic coast." Professor Buhagiar's comprehensive study, The St Paul Shipwreck Controversy - an Assessment of the Source Material, covers most aspects of the shipwreck controversy.
Scholars have already championed Malta's Pauline claim and although there is no definite proof, the evidence by far tips the scales in our favour. My greatest concern now is a relatively new thesis that the shipwreck occurred on the Munxar reef near Marsascala.
We have Dan Brown looking at a picture and creating a bestseller which has traded religion and history with fame and fortune. Now we have four or six Roman anchors found on the Munxar reef being fabricated into a story claiming a completely different site and totally ignoring our traditions. We are even receiving groups of divers or people interested in biblical archaeology, who are coming on tours from the United States and visiting this new alleged shipwreck site and who are badly influencing people living in the Marsascala area.
In his book The Lost Shipwreck of Paul, Robert Cornuke has traced the finding of such Roman anchors and has unconvincingly created a myth. I have no archaeological or scholastic pretences, I am an avid scuba diver and my knowledge is limited to these islands, both above and below sea level, local tradition and the Acts of the Apostles. With this limited arsenal of knowledge I shall attempt to rebut the cause for Munxar as described in this book.
Mr Cornuke holds his theory against St Paul's Bay and Salina Bay because he claims that well-travelled sailors would have recognised these bays. But a few pages later he completely counters his own argument by quoting Lionel Casson: "The ships are crack sailing craft, and their skippers the most experienced there are; they drive the vessels like racehorses on an unswerving course that goes straight as a die." (Ships and Seafaring in Ancient Times, Austin, Texas, 1994).
Casson was here referring to the Alexandrian grain ships which travelled on the trade route between Alexandria and Rome and who did not venture elsewhere because their main objective was to deliver their precious cargo of grain to Rome. Why would these experienced seamen have recognised Salina Bay when in his Notes at the end of the book he quotes Giuseppe Castelli and Charles Cini that "Salina Bay too must have served as a small harbour..." (Malta Romana - Il Patrimonio Archeologico delle Isole Maltesi, 1992)
"Up from Africa" is a claim that the ship coasted closely by the coast of Africa. Acts 27:17...and fearing that they might run aground on the shallows of Syrtis, they let down the sea anchor and in this way let themselves be driven along. The sea anchor is a basic survival tool to reduce drift, but these were also experienced seafarers who had a northeasterly wind violently pushing them in a southwestern direction towards the dreaded Syrtis.
Their obvious manoeuvre would have been to tie the sea anchor to the stern of the ship but on the starboard side, which would have given them a bearing in a more westerly direction rather than a southwesterly one. Not that anyone can presume such a drift in a storm, but a western course in the middle of the Mediterranean seems more obvious. In this case, the more probable shipwreck site would be anywhere on the northeast coast of the Maltese archipelago, i.e. from Marsaxlokk to Marsalforn.
The most incredible claim comes with the help of the Armed Forces of Malta and is found in pictures in the middle of Casson's book. A computer at the Operations Centre has analysed the direction of a vessel 2,000 years ago drifting more than 800 km from Crete, to bring it smack on the Munxar reef! If only computers were so reliable. Totally ignoring the fact that the sea anchor would definitely have influenced the course and possibly that the weather patterns of two millennia ago might be somewhat different.
I will give only three examples to show how futile this computer exercise is, and how difficult it is to predict sea currents and patterns with certainty. During my 20 years of diving, I have been involved in many searches for missing persons at sea, as a volunteer assisting the constituted bodies. During one such search some eight years ago, I was asked to co-ordinate the divers and close to shore surface search for two missing young fishermen whose small boat had capsized at Marfa on the north coast of Malta. The wind direction was a very strong NE veering E.
The day after, the wind changed direction, completely veering strong NW only to change again later to NE. This resulted in search parties finding an oar and the nearly empty fuel tank on the western coast near Gnejna and Fomm ir-Rih. Either the currents carried the buoyant debris coasting round the northwestern coast, or they were carried far out to sea to the west by the NE wind, only to return in a SE direction when the wind changed to NW.
The second example was reported in The Times (June 1, 2000) of a French diver whose body drifted from Toulon in France, some 1,000 km to the NW of Malta, to be retrieved on the southern coast near Xghajra. One would expect the body to be retrieved from the northwestern coast and not the opposite side, the southeastern coast. Sea currents play an important role and they do not always obey wind directions, sometimes travelling at a tangent.
The last example can be witnessed from the numerous landings of irregular immigrants on our shores. Most of them leave the Libyan coast travelling northwards, trying to reach Italy, but they always seem to meet problems at sea because they are given unseaworthy boats or not enough fuel. When they drift to our shores, one would expect them to land on our southern shores, but this is not always the case, as they have landed in several different bays, many times even on the north coast. And this from a much shorter distance travelled, Libya to Malta, rather than Crete to Malta.
Another picture, this time of the cliffs north of St Thomas Bay. Acts 27:39 When day came, they could not recognise the land; but they did observe a bay with a beach, and they resolved to drive the ship onto it if they could. If St Luke were looking towards land from the Munxar reef that morning, then maybe he would here have mentioned the distinct white cliffs near St Thomas Bay, although I do not exclude the fact that the topography would have changed in 2,000 years and what is obvious now may not have been so obvious then.
The back cover to Cornuke's book states "...evidence that demands a verdict" and it is this evidence that is so lacking in most frequently proposed shipwreck sites, but most of all on the Munxar reef. I would not have written these articles just to keep on repeating statements or quote studies made by others, unless I had a different perspective. I think this comes from the lack of evidence underwater... artefacts.
The pioneers of scuba diving in Malta started in the late Fifties and Sixties very basic equipment which usually took them to a depth of 20 and even 30 metres. This is a considerable depth, given the technology of the time and lack of knowledge regarding diving physics. It was in those decades that large groupers were caught in abundance and most underwater artefacts such as amphorae and bits and pieces of clay or maybe lead were discovered and brought up.
Since then the fish have grown smaller and less abundant as have the artefacts, obviously because our coast to within 40 metres depth has since been swept clean many decades ago. The new frontier now is for technical divers who are reaching and going beyond the 100-metre depth. This is relatively virgin territory and the finds are usually big ships.
I have spoken to many divers, fishermen or those who have lived and worked close to the sea, men of previous generations of diving and seamen. No one has reported any concentrations of artefacts found either in St Paul's Bay, Mellieha Bay or near the Munxar reef. I have not found any reported discoveries of at least one single lead anchor stock coming up from St Paul's Bay.
Ray Ciancio, a previous generation diver, known as Ic-Canc, who is mentioned in Cornuke's book and who is very well known in the Marsascala area, has confirmed that below the Munxar reef no concentrations of artefacts were ever found.
Of course, there will be exceptions and people who will come forward (and I would like to hear of their finds and promise complete confidentiality, as my sole aim is to search for the truth) with a find here or there, but I am talking of concentrations, as found below Ghallis Tower just outside Salina Bay, which over the decades has exposed many artefacts which obviously signify either a busy port, which does not seem to be the case, or a massive shipwreck.
There are other such spots of concentrations which would signify other shipwrecks: Qala or Xlendi in Gozo are two that come to mind, or Grand Harbour, which must have always been a busy port.
There are at least six reported lead anchor stocks found outside Salina Bay - five found by Comm. Scicluna decades ago and the one I discovered in the same area. If there is no evidence of artefacts besides the lead anchor stocks discovered near the Munxar reef, the obvious explanation would be that those anchors were sacrificed to keep another ship from the same era from actually being shipwrecked on the reef, and when the storm had passed, the ship would have continued on its journey without the heavy lead anchors.
I also wonder if the size of the anchors found near the Munxar reef are big enough for a ship that carried 276 men. The Salina Bay anchors seem to be larger.
Cornuke employed a mathematician to compute the probability of the shipwreck site being Munxar Reef, obviously with the selective data the mathematician was fed. From what this research has taught me about archaeology, you need hard facts, which so far have not yet been found, and not probabilities.
For instance, if St Luke had named the ship bringing them here and an artefact with such an inscription were to be found, or if he mentioned any particular piece of equipment which would have been different to other ships and this were to be discovered. But for arguments sake, it would be interesting if the same mathematician were to compare his previous computations with all the evidence for Salina Bay and including the lead anchor stock with the inscriptions ISIS and SARAPI, he would obviously have to conclude that by far the more probable site for St Paul's shipwreck must have been as tradition has always held it, on the northeastern coast and in the vicinity of Salina Bay.
Source notes are available to anyone interested.
Acknowledgements:
Fr Joseph Cilia, OFM Conv., Fr Egidio Mizzi, OFM Conv., Fr Donat Spiteri, OFM Cap., Bernard A. Vassallo, Biagio Galea, Professor Mario Buhagiar, Ray Ciancio, Robert Cornuke.