Reverence for the stones

Inside the Ħagar Qim Visitor Centre, one can find a series of photos of the Temples taken in the 1930s. They were taken by the famous Italian archaeologist Luigi Maria Ugolini a few years after the temples were excavated. Ugolini was a special envoy of Benito Mussolini, who tasked him with documenting our heritage with the aim of using the information to prove that our culture evolved from the Italian culture.

Incidentally, Ugolini was considered as a world expert, having just conducted the excavations of Butrint in Albania. Mussolini held him in high regard and supported his work even financially. However, and for some inexplicable reason, Ugolini’s requests started being ignored. His letters to Mussolini remained unanswered. Ugolini could not figure out why.

The reason became know to us much later. It so happened that Ugolini, after visiting our heritage sites, particularly the temples of Ħagar Qim and Mnajdra, concluded that rather than our culture evolving from that of our illustrious neighbours, it was the Italian culture that was born of ours.

Such is the importance of our heritage sites. The significance of our heritage was also recognised by Unesco when it declared six of our temple sites as being as World Heritage sites. This is no small feat. In 1972, the distinguished archaeologist Colin Renfrew described the Temples of Malta as the “oldest free-standing stone monuments in the world”, a claim which, according to the latest research, still stands today. All our Neolithic temples are considered to be of outstanding universal value to mankind.

These temples are very fragile. Climatic conditions, particularly the exposure to our excessive heat, rain, salt and humidity, were harming the temples. The presence of tourism, so essential to our country’s economic well-being, was leaving its mark on the temples and other heritage sites. We needed to act to limit these negative effects on our temples.

Thanks to EU Structural Funds we have been able to carry out a number of conservation and preservation projects including the recently inaugurated Visitor Centre and protective covers at Ħagar Qim and Mnajdra. This project represents an investment of €5 million in our cultural heritage. It is an essential project that will help us preserve and interpret better our heritage. It is also an investment towards upgrading our tourism product.

The Visitor Centre will enrich the experience of all those who visit the site, helping them to better understand its significance.

The buildings remain shrouded in mystery. Their fascination lies not only in the sheer size of the stones, their picturesque setting and their great age.

It lies also in the fact that we know so little about them, their purpose and about the people that built them. What is the link with the temples and the skies above? What happened to the people that built these magnificent structures? The Visitor Centre does not aim to provide answers to the unknown… rather it highlights the puzzles for the visitors’ attention and invites them to work out the answers for themselves, in so doing making their experience a more enjoyable one.

The Ħagar Qim Mnajdra Project has already drawn very positive feedback from the European Commission and from the international community as an example of innovative and sustainable best practice.

The Visitor Centre and Protective Shelters were inaugurated in the presence of dignitaries and people from the heritage and tourism sector among others. Perhaps more important was the presence of children in this event. Our action to preserve our heritage will ensure that they will inherit from us that which was passed to us from our ancestors.

I invite you to visit the new facilities at Ħagar Qim at tomorrow’s Open Day organised by Heritage Malta.

To celebrate this important occasion and in recognition to all those who worked on these sacred grounds, I would like to lift a quote from one of the Rolling Stones classic songs, Salt of the Earth:

Let's drink to the salt of the earth

Let's drink to the hard working people

Let's drink to the salt of the earth…

Let’s drink to the humble of birth.

Dr de Marco is Parliamentary Secretary for Tourism, the Environment and Culture.