Field Trip: Hal Saflieni Hypogeum
Photo Illustration: Humanizing History Visuals. Photos: xiquinhosilva, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Welcome to Humanizing History™! Every month, we feature a central theme. Each week, we dive into different areas of focus.
This month’s theme: Summer Field Trip, Earth Etched
This week’s focus: Field Trip, where we highlight significant historic, archaeological, and cultural sites around the world
Today’s edition of Humanizing History™ is about 1,400 words, an estimated 5-minute read.
The Why for This Week’s Topic
This month, we’re taking global field trips through history — exploring how people across time and place shaped the land, and how the land shaped them in return.
From carving into cliffs to arranging stones on desert plains, these physical imprints reveal values, beliefs, stories.
They remind us that shaping the land is a shared human experience, bridging time and geography.
To guide our journey, we’re asking:
How have cultures around the world shaped the land to reflect their values, beliefs, and practical needs?
What can we learn — and still not know — about a society by examining how they interacted with their environment?
Why do some societies build on top of the land, while others build into it? Essentially, how do different materials (stone, earth, cliff, desert, etc.) influence or shape people’s choices?
To dive deeper into this theme — Land Shapes People and People Shape Land — we’ve explored four distinct destinations:
The U.S. American Southwest, where Ancestral Puebloans carved homes into cliffs made of volcanic tuff.
Northwest China, where Emperor Qin Shi Huang’s Terracotta Army rests in an enormous subterranean tomb made from earth and clay.
The Nazca Desert of Peru, where massive geoglyphs, or Nazca Lines — some more than 2,000 years old — were etched into the desert floor, a wonder still puzzling archaeologists today.
Lalibela, Ethiopia, home to monolithic churches carved down or into solid rock, still in use after 800 years!
This week, for our final summer field trip, we’re journeying to Malta to explore the oldest recognized labyrinth in Europe: the underground temple known as the Hypogeum at Ħal Saflieni.
Hypogeum at Ħal Saflieni
Location: Paola, Malta
Time period: 4000 BCE to 2500 BCE, construction began 6,000 years ago!
Virtually visit the Hypogeum of Hal Saflieni via Google Arts and Culture
Virtual Tour
In the middle of Paola, Malta — a dense urban area filled with two- and three-story buildings and homes made of concrete and yellow limestone, red and blue doors adding bursts of color, narrow sidewalks hugging skinny roads, and mopeds and cars tucked along the one-way streets — an ancient underground world lies hidden.
From above, there’s no grand staircase or towering sculpture to hint at what’s below. Just a large brick wall.
But beneath that wall is something extraordinary: a vast subterranean burial site that remained secret for thousands of years.
It wasn’t unearthed until a construction worker — a “stone mason who was laying the foundations to build a number of houses” in the early 1900s — broke into the underground chamber. What he found would turn out to be a three-level labyrinth of carved rooms and winding corridors, designed not by chance, but with great care and intention.
Inside, archaeologists uncovered the remains of thousands of individuals, along with carved figures, like the “Sleeping Lady,” pottery, and jewelry. The architecture and acoustics suggest that the hypogeum may have been more than a burial site.
Today, we know that much of this site was built around 6,000 years ago, earning its designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
As described by Heritage Malta: “The site yielded a wealth of archaeological material, including pottery, human bones, personal ornaments, little carved animals and larger figurines. The Hypogeum at Ħal Saflieni is a unique monument, consisting of halls, chambers and passages hewn out of globigerina limestone.”
Keep reading to learn more about the Hypogeum of Hal Saflieni — the oldest known subterranean labyrinth in Europe.
Land Shapes People and People Shape Land
The unique geological history of Malta quite literally made it possible for people to shape the land.
For tens of millions of years, the islands that now make up Malta were submerged beneath a warm sea. Over time, marine sedimentation built up layers of limestone — a soft rock formed from compressed marine organisms. Tectonic shifts eventually raised these limestone beds above sea level, creating a landscape that, millions of years later, would be ideal for carving.
The Hal Saflieni Hypogeum is a prime example of how humans interacted with their environment. Hewn from globigerina limestone, the hypogeum is made up of three distinct levels, each built across time.
The upper level is the oldest and believed to have been primarily used as a burial site. Archaeologists have uncovered the remains of around 7,000 people here.
The lower level, the deepest, was likely used for storage and lacks the same ceremonial features of the other levels.
The middle level — the most developed — contains the most architecturally complex and symbolically rich spaces. It includes the Main Chamber, which has smooth, elliptical walls designed to mirror the above-ground megalithic temples; the Oracle Room, an acoustic marvel; and walls decorated with red ochre spirals.
The layers were built across time. As noted by Google Arts and Culture: “As the cavities filled up, new chambers were progressively cut deeper into the rock, and parts of it were carved in a clear imitation of the temples built above ground.”
Both Impressive Architecture and Acoustics
The design of the hypogeum is an architectural marvel.
Natural light filters through certain openings in the structure, illuminating specific subterranean walls during the summer and winter solices. This alignment suggests not only deep understanding of the solar calendar, but also intentional design that connected the space to celestial events.
Inside the Oracle Room, a chamber within the middle level, sound takes on a powerful role. The human voice can travel clearly throughout the entire chamber. In fact, if someone hits the frequency of 110 Hz, often reached through humming or chanting, the entire structure resonates. The sound creates vibrations that can be physically felt in the body, suggesting the space was designed not just for burial, but also for spiritual or ceremonial purposes.
Underground, the hypogeum echoes the design of Malta’s above-ground megalithic temples. As described by UNESCO: “One of the most striking characteristics of the Ħal Saflieni Hypogeum is that some of the chambers appear to have been cut in imitation of the architecture of the contemporary, above-ground megalithic temples. Features include false bays, inspired by trilithon doorways, and windows. Most importantly, some of the chambers have ceilings with one ring of carved stone overhanging the one below to imitate a roof of corbelled masonry.”
It’s worth pausing to remember: the construction of this elaborate space began more than 6,000 years ago, and all of it was carved by hand — using stone and flint tools.
Why 6,000 Years Is Especially Noteworthy
Not only is this the oldest known subterranean labyrinth in all of Europe, the hypogeum predates many of the most iconic architectural achievements of the ancient world.
It came before: the Ziggurat of Ur built by Sumerians of Mesopotamia, the Pyramids of Giza constructed in ancient Egypt, the Stonehenge builders of what would be modern-day Britain, the cities and granaries of the Indus Valley Civilization, the Palace of Knossos built by the Minoans on Crete, the great palatial complexes of ancient China, the colossal stone heads carved by the Olmec of Mesoamerica.
Constructed around 6,000 years ago, the hypogeum dates to the Neolithic Era, or the New Stone Age. That means it was most likely built without the use of metals like iron or bronze, without the use of written records or directions, without the commission of a known monarchy or ruler, without the use of the wheel, and even without the power of draft animals.
This site — with its smooth, curved walls, stone pillars, acoustic capacities, and multiple subterranean layers — was made by hand. Using only flint tools, ropes, levers, rollers, and brilliant engineering, the people of Neolithic Malta accomplished something extraordinary.
As some archaeologists suggest, they likely used “cyclopean rigging to lift huge blocks of coralline limestone” to move and shape enormous blocks of limestone, both above and below ground.
As a result, they left behind one of the best-preserved environments from the Neolithic world. The Hypogeum of Hal Saflieni isn’t just a time capsule — it’s a disruption to outdated narratives that paint Neolithic people as “primitive.”
It offers us a humbling reminder that human intelligence, collaboration, and ingenuity has deep and ancient roots.
This structure doesn’t just exhibit how land shapes people — it also serves as a canvas through which humans express belief, honor life and death, and cultivate resonance, one strike and one vibration at a time.
Next month, we’ll revisit some of our most popular newsletters — especially those that support educators and families in planning school-year openers that expand how we connect to, and tell, the human story.
Stay tuned!
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