The author’s field notes from April 18, 1969.

I refer to Fiona Vella’s article on the secret passages in the old parish church of St Catherine of Żejtun (The Sunday Times of Malta, March 25) and wish to add a footnote.

In the article, Charles Debono gives a detailed and correct account of the discovery in April 1969 by his father, the late John Mary (Gianmarie) Debono. The find was prominently reported in The Times of April 15, 1969.

Gianmarie was the verger of the church and I have fond and grateful memories of him for his generous assistance when I was researching the art and architecture significance of the church for my book St Catherine of Alexandria. Her Churches, Paintings and Statues in the Maltese Islands (Malta 1979), which was my first informed attempt to come to meaningful terms with art history of the Maltese Islands.

At the time of the passages discovery, I was attached to the National Museum Department, on secondment from the Ministry of Education and Culture. On April 18, 1969, the Director of Museums, Captain Charles George Zammit, delegated me to investigate the find and submit a report to the Monuments and Plagues Committee and for the museum records.

Accompanied by two of the museum’s handymen, I was welcomed by Gianmarie, who showed me the passages and gave me a detailed account of the circumstances of the discovery and of the miscellaneous finds. I sketched a rough plan, took measurements and noted and photographed de­tails of interest. My signed and dated report should be in the Żejtun file of Heritage Malta’s National Museum of Archaeology, but I refer to my field notes.

The church is strategically located on high ground and the two openings might have been lookouts (or vedettes). It is possible that the galleries had a military function and that the fortress-like appearance of the backside of the church was no coincidence

The passages occupy a space in the three sides of the wall-thickness, circa 0.65 metres beneath the roof level, of the south transeptal arm of the church built at the turn of the 17th century. The layout is of three, narrow, circa 0.85-metre-wide galleries ‘a’, ‘b’, and ‘c’, having an average height of 1.84 metres. The main gallery ‘b’ occupies the main face of the transept and is 12.50 metres long. Galleries ‘a’ and ‘c’ branch from it at right angles and are respectively 9.14 metres and 9.45 metres long. Gallery ‘c’ is blind, but ‘a’ and ‘b’ each have two narrow, 0.26-metre-wide eye-level openings, which provide excellent pano­ramic views of the anchorages of Marsascala and Marsaxlokk.

The church is strategically located on high ground and the two openings might have been lookouts (or vedettes) to monitor activity in the two harbours which, before the building of the San Tumas and San Luċjan towers, were unprotected. It is, therefore, possible that the galleries had a military function and that the fortress-like appearance of the backside of the church was no coincidence.

At an unknown time, gallery ‘c’ was sealed off by a rude wall of rubble stones and reutilised ashlars cemented together with wet earth. It was un­blocked in my presence by the two handymen, revealing a heap of human bones subsequently estimated of around 80 or 90 individuals. Other bones littered galleries ‘a’ and ‘b’. My notes record 13 of the approximately 36 skulls: eight in good condition with a fair number of teeth and five in varying states of preservation but with a few teeth still on.

The author’s sketch of the three, narrow galleries within the walls of the church, indicating the locations of the three graffiti.

I was shown the few artefacts found in the debris. They in­cluded three coins, two bronze and one gold, too eroded to allow deciphering but seemingly with the eight-pointed cross on the reverse, the remains of a high-heeled shoe, and a small Greek cross with traces of gilding.

I missed the fragment of a “chain mail armour vest” and “the bits of a gilded wooden frame”. Possibly they were discovered after my visit. I noted, in addition, a few wooden buttons with the remains of covering cloth, undatable pottery shards, the skin of a pomegranate and a few chestnut shells.

I associated the bones with the 1614 Ottoman raid that devastated Żejtun and severely damaged the church. In my report I suggested that a group of unlucky individuals had found refuge in the galleries which they accessed through a trap-door on the roof of the church using rope ladders which were rolled up to make the hiding place more secure.

For an unknown reason they died in their claustrophobic place of confinement. Their decomposing corpses were discovered soon after the enemy fleet had sailed away but fear of infection prevented their removal for proper burial and the walled-up galleries became their grave.

My reasoning was proved wrong by a paleopathological study, carried out in 1978, by PhD candidate S. Ramaswani and Dr. J. Pace, which produced evidence that the bones had already been buried but were exhumed from a cemetery that was possibly destroyed when it was dug up to lay the foundations for new accretions to the church. The baffling question remains unanswered as to why the trouble was taken to carry the bones up to the church roof and deposit them the wall-thickness galleries instead of reburying them in a communal grave.

Memories of the walled-up bones remained alive in folk memory. Before their rediscovery by Gianmarie Debono, the galleries had been entered on at least two occasions. This is confirmed by three graffiti which I recorded on the church-facing wall of long gallery ‘b’: ‘T 1896’; ‘Giovanni Zahra 1909’; and ‘Giovanni Zahra 20.2.1909’.

I have discussed the old parish church of Żejtun and its historical, art and architectural interest in several of my publications. It is with satisfaction that I welcome the informed interest of Wirt iż-Żejtun in general, and Fiona Vella in particular. The church is of foremost interest to the national heritage and richly deserves attention. Gianmarie Debono’s discovery gave an added dimension to its interest and his work deserves to be gratefully remembered.

Prof. Mario Buhagiar is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, and Professor of History of Art, and for a long time was head of the University of Malta’s History of Art Department, which he founded.