2-889-572 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Excavation near Citta Vecchia, in the Island of Malta, 1850. Archaeological site containing a temple. 'The cave is hewn out in the solid rock...The cavity consists of three large compartments, each penetrating into the other by parallel quadrangular rectangular excavations...[one of the chambers] is considered to have been the place where sacrifices were offered up...The masonic symbols were put up by the two gentlemen who cleared the chambers of the debris and rubbish with which they were stopped up...There can be no doubt that the trenches were intended for water, for even now there is always some water in them...one must come to the conclusion that the recently-discovered subterranean temple was the workmanship of some of the earliest inhabitants of the island of Malta. It is not at all unlikely that the Egyptians; if not the Phoenicians, worshipped in it'. From "Illustrated London News", 1850.