Malta’s underground has captured the interest of many. The intrigue is justified since the variety of underground tombs and tunnels that have been hand-hewn in the Maltese rock across the passage of time is astounding. Notable examples are the Hal Saflieni Hypogeum, the catacombs, the war shelters and the Valletta tunnels.
The War Shelters
A sobering reminder of the horrors of wartime Malta, there are presumably over 850 air-raid shelters around the islands. In June 1941, it was recorded that there were 473 public rock shelters, with a further 382 under construction. Visit over 500 metres of hand-hewn corridors, anti-blast chambers, family rooms, a maternity clinic and a treasury at the Mellieha Air Raid Shelters! Or imagine the fear and claustrophobia of being in the rabbit-warren network of the shelters in Birgu, when all you can hear is enemy bombs and the reciting of the rosary. You can really relive World War II in Malta.
The Valletta Tunnels
The War HQ Tunnels include The Lascaris War Rooms - Britain’s World War II Operations Headquarters in Malta, the St Peter & Paul Counterguard, the NATO tunnels and the unfinished tunnels that were used as a Civil Government Bunker. You can do a two-hour tour of the complex of underground tunnels and chambers making up the War HQ Tunnels that lie 150 feet beneath the Upper Barrakka Gardens in Valletta. But that’s not all. If perhaps not as mysterious as some stories would have it, the city underground is a maze of sewers, wells and granaries built by the Knights of St John, World War II shelters and even an old railway tunnel.
Malta’s Catacombs
Roll back time a little bit further. Used from the 3rd century BC until the end of the Byzantine period in the 8th century AD, you’ll find a series of underground burial chambers known as catacombs. The famous St Paul’s and St Agatha’s Catacombs are at the heart of an extensive complex of over thirty hypogea in Rabat, near Malta’s old capital, Mdina. The system of interconnected passages and rock-cut tombs covers an area of over 10,000 square metres, with the largest communal catacomb covering around 2,000 square metres and the capacity to accommodate hundreds of people. Malta also has the Ta' Bistra Catacombs in Mosta, Tal-Mintna in Mqabba, the Salina Catacombs and the Hal Saflieni Hypogeum.
Hal Saflieni Hypogeum
Elongated skulls and lost children are just some of the stories associated with the most famous of catacombs in Malta, perhaps the most famous in the world: the Hal Saflieni Hypogeum. One of the burial chambers located at floor level in the third sub-level of the Hypogeum, which is now closed to the public, is allegedly a doorway into another underground world populated by giants! The Hal Saflieni Hypogeum dates from 3300-3000 BC and consists of three precision hand-hewn levels of chambers that include ‘the oracle room’, a resonance niche in the middle chamber that projects sounds throughout the rest of the Hypogeum!
BONUS
And if that were not enough and you'd like to explore the underground beyond that which is related to the story of humankind, visit also Ghar Dalam and Ghar Hasan, two natural and marvellous Malta caves.