The Oracle Room
A niche echoing the voice through the whole complex.
CC BY-SA 3.0 · Ethan Doyle White — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Andrey BG — Public domain · xiquinhosilva — CC BY 2.0
Try the limited next-day tickets at the Archaeology Museum in the morning, or settle for the surface temples of Ħaġar Qim and Tarxien — and the Sleeping Lady herself is displayed at the Archaeology Museum.
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An underground temple cut into rock five thousand years ago: the Hypogeum was found by accident in 1902 while digging a well for a new house, revealing three levels and more than thirty chambers hewn from limestone with stone tools and ox horns — the world's oldest subterranean temple, and a UNESCO site. The chambers imitate the surface temples' architecture with columns and lintels, but carved out of solid rock, their ceilings still marked with red ochre spirals. In the "Oracle Room" a niche amplifies a deep voice and echoes it through the whole complex — a deliberate acoustic effect demonstrated on the tour. Here the Sleeping Lady was found, with the bones of seven thousand people. Protection is strict: only eighty visitors a day in ten groups, in a climate-controlled environment guarding the ochre — so it books months ahead at times, the hardest ticket in Malta and its most precious thing.
A niche echoing the voice through the whole complex.
Ochre on the ceilings for five thousand years.
Triq iċ-Ċimiterju, Paola