http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypogeum
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypogeum_o ... l-Saflieni
Fact or fiction?
A little background first:
When Christian underground shrines, crypts and tombs that would be hypogea if the rites and burials were pagan, are called catacombs, a mistaken discontinuity in sepulture practices is implied that is not borne out by the archeology and history.
Since the time of the Carthagians, Malta has had many rulers--Romans, Arabs, Normans, Argonese, Castillians, the Hospitalers or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, later known as the Knights of Rhodes, and still later as the Knights of Malta, who remain there to this day, having duel headquarters in Rome. A few miles south of the city of Valletta, Malta, is the town of Casal Paula (Paola). In the year 1902, workmen who were digging a well literally fell into the earth. What they discovered (or rather re-discovered) was a series of ancient caves, mostly excavated out of solid rock, which descended into the earth and into three lower levels below. These multi-leveled catacombs became known as the "Hypogeum of Hal Saflieni", named after the street beneath which they were discovered. A hypogeum is the Latin name for an underground structure.
From a 1940 issue of National Geographic:
"Many subterranean passageways, including ancient catacombs, now are a part of the island's fortifications and defense system. Supplies are kept in many tunnels; others are bomb shelters. Beneath Valletta some of the underground areas served as homes for the poor. Prehistoric men built temples and chambers in these vaults. In a pit beside one sacrificial altar lie thousands of human skeletons. Years ago one could walk underground from one end of Malta to the other. The Government closed the entrances to these tunnels after school children and their teachers became lost in the labyrinth while on a study tour and never returned."
According to Richard Walter's article "Wanderers Awheel in Malta," as featured in the August 1940 National Geographic, and as reprinted by Crabb in his lecture, "Years ago one could walk underground from one end of Malta to the other, but all entrances were closed by the government because of a tragedy. On a sight-seeing trip, comparable to a nature study tour in our own (American) schools, a number of elementary school children and their teachers descended into the tunneled maze and did not return. For weeks mothers declared that they heard wailing and screaming from underground, but numerous excavations and searching parties brought no trace of the lost souls. After three weeks they were finally given up for dead."
In 1935 two schoolteachers, leading a large group of elementary students on an "educational" outing, decided to explore the catacombs and caverns beneath Hal Salfini. According to witnesses, "as the last student turned the corner…the rope was clean cut." This "accident" was followed by a sudden "cave-in" which completely sealed the tunnel into which they'd gone.
While "caving" or spelunking accidents occur regularly, this event was preceded by another a few days earlier which put the entire matter into a different perspective. As related to Riley Crabb by a Miss Lois Jessup, and recounted as follows in "The Reality of the Underground:"
"What's down there?" she asked the guide, pointing to a small opening off the walls.
"Go there at your own risk, and you won't go far," he replied.
This was a challenge Lois couldn't pass up. She talked it over with her friends. Two of them decided to stay with Joe. The other three summoned up enough courage to explore with her.
"I was wearing a dress with a long sash that day and as I decided to lead the group I asked the fellow behind me to hold onto it. So, with half-burnt candles in our hands the four of us started through that low, narrow passage, groping and laughing our way through.
" I cam out first, of course, onto a ledge pathway only two feet wide, with a sheer drop of fifty feet or more on my right and the wall on my left. I took a step forward, keeping close to the rock wall side. The person behind me, still holding on to my sash, was still in the tunnel.
"I held my candle higher and peered down into the abyss, thinking that with this dangerous drop it was better not to go on further without a guide. Then I saw about twenty persons of giant stature emerge from an opening deep below me. They were walking in single file along another narrow ledge down below. Their height I judged to be about twenty to twenty-five feet, since their heads came up about half way on the wall on the opposite side of the cave. They walked very slowly, taking long strides. Then they all stopped, turned and raised their heads in my direction. All simultaneously raised their arms and with their hands beckoned to me. The movement was something like snatching or feeling for something, as the palms of their hands were turned down."
By this time her friends back in the passage were becoming impatient of the delay. There was a tug at the sash.
"Go on. We're all getting stuck in here. What's the matter?"
"Well," stammered Lois, "there's nothing much to see."
She took another hesitant step forward, her candle in her right hand, her left hand against the cold rock for support. but it wasn't on a cold rock wall, it was on something damp and wet, AND IT MOVED!
"Then a strong wind came from nowhere and blew my candle out! Now I really WAS scared in the darkness. I yelled to the others, "GO BACK! GO BACK! Guide me with my sash. I can't see!"
"They pulled me back into the low tunnel and we backed up all the way along the passage into the larger room."
Lois was relieved to see her friends and Joe, the guide, again.
"Did you see anything?" one of them replied.
"No, my candle went out," she replied with finality. "There was a strong draft in there."
"Let's go," said Joe, looking at Lois, and she returned his glance eye for eye. She knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that at one time Joe had also seen those giants. There was an expression of caution in his glance which held her to silence.
"Out in the hot Malta sunshine again we thanked our guide and as we tipped him Joe said to me: "If YOU really are interested in exploring further it would be wise to join a group. There is a schoolteacher who is going to take a party exploring soon."
Lois left her address with him, suggesting that he have the schoolteacher get in touch with her; but she never heard any more of it. Some few days later one of the friends of the Hal Salfini excursion called her on the phone.
"Remember that tunnel you wanted to explore in the Hypogaeum?" Well, it says here in the local paper that a schoolmaster and thirty students went exploring and apparently got as far as we got. They were roped together, with the end of the rope tied to the opening of the cave. As the last student turned the corner where your candle blew out the rope was clean cut. None of the party was found because the walls caved in."
Miss Jessup was shocked by the news, but it only strengthened her own resolve to say nothing of what she had seen and felt that unforgettable day in Hal Salfini. Some months later her sister came to Malta on a visit, and insisted on touring the famous Hypogaeum. Reluctantly, Lois went along, retracing the same route but this time with a different guide! She awaited that fateful opening with a dread expectancy as they worked their way through the corridors and rooms to the lowest level. The entrance to the tunnel was boarded up!
When she went back to the Hypogeum on another occasion, she was told no such tour guide had ever worked on the site.
She learned from more cooperative sources however, that THIS was the tunnel that the children and their teacher(s) and possibly the old guide, had entered. She also learned that after the last child had made it through, the walls of the small tunnel just "happened" to collapse or cave-in. Although the official version stated that the walls caved-in on the students, search parties were never able to locate any trace of the teacher(s) or the children, although the rope that they had used to fasten themselves to the lower Hypogeum chamber was found to have been CLEAN CUT as if by something sharp (not falling rock).
*edit* fake
I originally stumbled across this while very deeply enmeshed in reading Grant Morrison's The Filth and encountering the word "hypogeum"
WHAT IS THE FILTH ?
'Visit the centre of the earth
There you will find the global fire
Rectify it of all dirt
Drive it out with love and ire...’
sang Benedictus Figula
