A Light On the Past

Walking into the cool shade of Ghar Dalam from the bright spring sunshine outside might send a shiver down your spine: here, inside the depths of this ancient cave – whose name means the Cave of Darkness – was found the earliest evidence of human settlement in the Maltese islands, shining a flickering light on the islands’ mysterious past.

First excavated in 1865 by Professor Arturo Issel, an Italian geologist in search of Neanderthal Man in Malta, the cave yielded layers of fossils from as early as 500,000 years ago to less than 10,000 years ago, when the first signs of human presence in Malta were discovered.

As archaeologists dug in the solidified mud they passed through several layers, each of which was like a journey into the mysterious past that took them further and further back in time.

The lowermost layers, more than 500,000 years old, contained the fossil bones of dwarf elephants, hippopotami, micro-mammals and birds. Above the pebble layer that follows, is the so-called “deer” layer, dated to around 18,000 years ago. The top layer, or “cultural layer”, dates to less than 10,000 years and holds evidence of the first humans on the island.

The Ghar Dalam Museum is divided into two sections: a modern didactic part in which one finds information about the cave, and the “Old Museum” which was kept as an example of a Victorian style museum in which hundreds of semi-fossilised bones are mounted on wooden boards without any explanations. “The Old Museum” was opened in 1933 while the new didactic museum was inaugurated in 2002.
Considered to be one of the oldest caves in the Maltese islands, Ghar Dalam was formed at a time when the climate was milder and much wetter. Water from heavy rainfalls formed the many valleys, underground caverns and caves that are characteristic of the Maltese islands. Ghar Dalam was formed by the action of rushing waters that eroded the soft limestone forming a long tube. An overlaying river running down towards the sea gradually ate its way into, through, and well beyond the subterranean tunnel, ultimately reaching the level of the present valley bed. The two ends of the tunnel were therefore left perched high on either side of the valley. One end is now Ghar Dalam, while the opposite end is known simply as “the Second Cave”.

The overflowing river, running at right angles to the tunnel, gradually “ate” its way deeper and deeper into the limestone until it reached the tunnel’s roof and breached it. This formation of the cave happened in the early periods of the Ice Age, but the collapse of the cave’s roof happened at much the same time when herds of hippopotami and elephants roamed the island. When the tunnel roof collapsed, carcasses of dead animals, dismembered skeletal parts and other debris dragged by the river were sucked into the tunnel and deposited within.

Ghar Dalam is also an important archaeological site because in it were found the first signs of human activity on the Maltese islands. Apart from pottery dating back to 5,200BC, human remains were found inside the cave.

Article and images by
Heritage Malta