Hypogeum of Ħal-Saflieni history of a non human civilization?

First of all you can write off the thoughts of being "cro-magnon" or any of those... they never existed. Scientists took monkey bones, human bones and some artistic license to create those...

With that being said...

Why are we so quick to assume that we were the first intelligent species to take up residence here?

Maybe they left because we smell bad and are ill tempered...

madmac5150

Why are we so quick to assume that we were the first intelligent species to take up residence here?

That is my line of thinking. We evolved here. But there is nothing in the fossil record like them.

Either they didn't exist, or they are not from our neck of the woods.

If these skulls are tested and found to be genetically dissimilar to humans... I wonder... how would modern science deal with those findings (if they even accept the findings to begin with). Modern science abhors paradigm shifts...

I would hope they would then conclude, with no fossil evidence, that they are alien in origin.

But i doubt that will ever come to light, regardless of the fact.

Harte
Dolichocaphalic skulls are one of three types classified by anthropology, back when skull shape was thought to mean more than we today know it does.

This sort of skull is typical of Caucasian (including, but not limited to, Nordic peoples and ancient British peoples) and Negroid types but not the Mongoloid type.
From wiki:

Observable craniofacial differences included: head shape (mesocephalic, brachycephalic, dolichocephalic) breadth of nasal aperture, nasal root height, sagittal crest appearance, jaw thickness, brow ridge size and forehead slope. Using this skull-based categorization, anthropologists[who?] identified three or four racial groups;
Caucasoid characterized by a tall dolichocephalic skull, receded zygomas, large brow ridge and projecting-narrow nasal apertures.
Negroid characterized by a short dolichocephalic skull, receded zygomas and wide nasal apertures.
Mongoloid characterized by a medium brachycephalic skull, projecting zygomas, small brow ridge and small nasal apertures.

As unusual as the underground site may be, the skulls are not unusual in the least.

Harte

Your right it is a type however has nothing to do with these skulls as far as being different from us. Look at these and tell me its caucasoid they are elongated not up but back i hate to say this but just like the aliens on predator. No that doesnt mean i think they were aliens but possibly another species.



Now the strange part is most of these skulls have disappeared and very few remain which i find strange considering there was 7000 bodies found in the caverns.

This curiously enough looks like a caveman version of a bomb shelter. No offense given or implied to the cave people involved.
After all why would a society take all the effort, greatly exceeding above ground work to create a such a living space? If there were other ravaging groups taking the surface over hiding underground might make sense. But they would need a long time frame to create this underground city.

The other thing that is very unusual is nothing left but the walls. No loose tools or toys left behind. These items of antiquity always seem to be stripped of anything resembling art or writing. This always strikes me as weird. If the inhabitants died there should be all types of leftovers scattered around. No one cleans up after themselves to that extent. Even when we plan to leave a place we leave scraps behind.

Also no ornamentation on the walls? This presents a different conundrum. If they were advanced enough to dig they must have some fire or candles for light. The candles (man there must have been a big bunch of them to see around this place!) needed a place to sit.

It looks like a bomb shelter but why build it?

reply to post by dragonridr


Look at either the Vatican or the Smithsonian

My did they date the structure? Could it be their means of dating is flawed?
Carbon dating is only usable on things that once lived. Did they date the bodies?
Or was it some other remnant?

Could the structure be from an older form of humans that lived here before the last ice age?

So many questions, lead to more questions.

Its a mystery, one that may never be solved.

datasdream
This curiously enough looks like a caveman version of a bomb shelter. No offense given or implied to the cave people involved.
After all why would a society take all the effort, greatly exceeding above ground work to create a such a living space? If there were other ravaging groups taking the surface over hiding underground might make sense. But they would need a long time frame to create this underground city.

The other thing that is very unusual is nothing left but the walls. No loose tools or toys left behind. These items of antiquity always seem to be stripped of anything resembling art or writing. This always strikes me as weird. If the inhabitants died there should be all types of leftovers scattered around. No one cleans up after themselves to that extent. Even when we plan to leave a place we leave scraps behind.

Also no ornamentation on the walls? This presents a different conundrum. If they were advanced enough to dig they must have some fire or candles for light. The candles (man there must have been a big bunch of them to see around this place!) needed a place to sit.

It looks like a bomb shelter but why build it?

Well i think it was a temple even has an unusual feature theres a hole you can talk into that amplifies your voice allowing it to be heard throughout the temple complex.

Malta

Located south of Sicily, the islands of Malta and Gozo are home to megalithic structures that were created by a highly developed people more than a thousand years ahead of Stonehenge and the pyramids. The monuments, including ancient temples, represent free-standing architecture in its purest and most original form. Design features including corbelled ceilings, are mirrored in subterranean mortuary shrines that have been carved out of solid limestone. (In architecture, corbelling is a system of a row of stones oversailing the one below it, reducing the area of the ceiling with each row upward and distributing its weight.) Malta’s Hal Saflieni Hypogeum provides the most extraordinary example. A multi-leveled complex of caves and ritual chambers, it is a gem of archaeology

So we have strange skulls stories of giants and serpent priests and a very unusual architecture that manipulates sound!

Malta’s subterranean Hal-Saflieni Hypogeum, architecturally intact after five thousand years, is known to have anomalous sound effects. This site’s architectural features not only mirror the above-ground megalithic buildings, but also imply a primitive understanding of acoustic behavior. Could this natural phenomenon lend weight to the theory that the development of monumental architecture may actually have been prompted by a desire to manipulate sound effects for some unknown practical and/or ritual purpose? Can such remote antiquity hold new relevance for science and modern behavior studies?

thearrowsoftruth.com...

Yep., this is a very interesting site...

I remember reading about it in this thread. Not sure if your thread is covering the same general info...
www.abovetopsecret.com...

PhotonEffect
Yep., this is a very interesting site...

I remember reading about it in this thread. Not sure if your thread is covering the same general info...
www.abovetopsecret.com...

edit on 19-1-2014 by PhotonEffect because: (no reason given)

Odly i was looking into the legend of the minotaur in greek legend and it mentioned Malta. So looking into greek history it mentions this place and i started looking in to it and it got weirder and weirder. Like an ancient X file a lot of weird things happened at this site. Including the legends in malta itself talking of beasts living under ground.

reply to post by dragonridr


If this is the same place im thinking of, the builders had a knack for understand acoustics. There is supposed to be a room where a person can talk at normal voice levels and be heard on the far side of the cave system. Ancient Aliens did a partial story on this place, suggesting it dated back farther than 12k years old.

The more we discover, the more we realize just how little we know.

reply to post by Xcathdra


With regards to the acoustics in the Hypogeum.... Its exactly as described. In the 'Sleeping Lady' room where the small figurines were found, any noise made in that room echos throughout the whole complex except for the 'Quiet' Chambers. The quiet chambers were for the wealthy as there was only one skeleton per chamber. I have visited the Hypogeum on many occasions and the caverns themselves werent built/dug out in one go. The 7,000 Skeletons found in the complex were placed over a long period of time and based on Human population in Malta at the time and divided into 'price per place to rest' The deeper you go into the Hypogeum the smaller the graves become from the entrance where several 'Quiet' Chambers for a single skeleton in each right down (30odd Minute walk) to the end of the caverns where mearly a shoe box sized grave per skeleton and then the 'Grave Pits' where several hundred skeletons were found.

IMO The first time the Hypogeum was constructed was for worship and burial but as time moved on and more bodies needing to be buried the Hypogeum grew and as found in Rome and Athens the bodies of the dead would be moved after time deeper into the complex so the paying family can have thier loved ones closer to the entrance and in more peacfull area of the Hypogeum. Today in Malta we still have a similar gave/burial setting regarding money. My own grave was purchased by my family so I would lay to rest on top of my fathers coffin and my Uncle is under neath my fathers coffin and so forth. To give an example its like a 20foot single file grave and every time someone passes they go next on top of the last family member. This all costs Money and if the rent isnt being paid then the graves would be emptied and cleared for another family to have thier resting place.

reply to post by dragonridr


Thank you for the post, Sorry one bit of correction. We do have snakes on the island and we still have the very species that bit St Paul.

Times of Malta

The snake is venomous but over a thousand years of being hunted becuase of its leathality, the snake has mearly become non-dangerous due to its lack of numbers. I have been bitten several times by the Lepoard snake as a boy (being bostrious out and about) and id say one in three times id have to go to hospital for swelling of the skin. Just depends on how hard they bit me lol But from records the snakes venom would cuase suffocation within 3-5 minutes back when they were a real problem, then some how St Paul solved this..... But mainstream theories suggest the snake had chosen to eat different prey and therefore lost its potency in venom over time.

We have a funny saying in Maltese about St Paul and the snake..... "St Paul took the venom from the Snake and cured all the people who got bit and with the venom he placed it upon the Maltese womens tongues"

reply to post by datasdream


You make a good point about not being any remains of tools etc..... Except that it is not a city, just a place for the dead as that was all that was found there, and some figurines of the 'sleeping lady' which can be associated with the dead.

With nearly all sites in Malta there is a complete lack of tools and evidence of how certain structures where built or any evedence of how life was. I always think lack of tools doesnt mean lack of presence. To make a structure and to be a good one such as the Hypogeum takes alot of effort and skill, Possibly from someone whos Trade is in stone work and a tradesmith never leaves his/her tools behind. Just like other trades from past cultures the tools of the trade would tend to be handed down from Father to son and so forth. Meaning a tool made in thousands of years ago could very well be handed down through the generations maybe only to the grandson before that tool breaks beyond repair. Then another is made and the tradition continues.... On that basis that leaves very few possibilities of any tools surviving.

With History its always good to stop and look around at what we do today and if you apply it to the past.... everything seems clearer.

I love ats for the fact that someone from Malta chimed in. that is pretty insane if you ask me. pretty crazy. My question for you Maltese rhino would be what do you think of the elongated skulls is there any rumors or stories that go with that? Was it ancient aliens? Any first hand rumors stories would be great !!

reply to post by nrd101


Well I have to be honest..... Only a few days ago I even learned of the Elongated skulls! I have visited the Valletta Archives many times and tried to go last weekend but was closed....Again ARGH! Basically all evidence to the skulls has been erased. Most of my friends also intrigued by this presume its the Maltese Goverment not wanting anything 'strange' Associated with a christian complex... Yes christian' as some skeletal remains found at the Hypoguem had Crucifixes, and we have some written record of St Paul visiting the site and blessed the place. Most people do believe the Hypogeum to be a place of christian worship. With Malta having a huge percentage of Christians

CIA World Factbook report that 98% of the population is Catholic.

We can say that anything that could harm Christian views... Such as 'Aliens worshiped God' might not go down too well.

Most of the sites in Malta also have these problems. I do hope soon to make my own thread based on the conspiraces of Malta and the Islands Comino and Gozo cause...... There is a hell of a lot of them! The Hypogeum is mearly the newest one, well for me at least.

nrd101
I love ats for the fact that someone from Malta chimed in. that is pretty insane if you ask me. pretty crazy. My question for you Maltese rhino would be what do you think of the elongated skulls is there any rumors or stories that go with that? Was it ancient aliens? Any first hand rumors stories would be great !!

Actually sorry needed to say a little about the 'stories'. Well my childhood stories that my mum and dad told me all derived from these.

'Dont go into the dark caves, ghosts that dwell in the caves from our past. Take children who dare to sneak into thier world'

During christmass my Dad loved telling me about the Gaints. Now I cant remember the date but in Maltese Folklore during December there would be a gaint/s who would snatch children who were naughty for that year. "The Giants can get you anywhere, only 2-3 steps and they can get from Marsaxlokk to Cirkewwa.(about 33Km) No naughty child is safe'

With the Serpents or Snake Preists, I have to say never heard of them nor seen any reference to it in Malta. Then again even though it is a Small Island, Tales and Stories can vary and be completely different from one town to another. Missing Children is a popular tale even in Gozo (the second largest island) where gaints have been known to take people from as recent as the 1970s. More shocking is in my findings, the stories are there...... But no reports from any Family having missing Children. Like the case with the field trip at the Hypogeum. Many children lost yet nothing from the families and no search done. I think most of the stories are just stories to make sure us Mischivous kids dont go loosing ourselves in the caves. Which btw are all over the Island.

Fascinating that this story seems to corroborate Richard Shaver's tales in Amazing Stories. Seems he too had witnessed the Deros and had wandered The Hollow Earth

Shaver

During 1943, Shaver wrote a letter to Amazing Stories magazine. He claimed to have discovered an ancient language he called "Mantong", a sort of Proto-Human language which was the source of all Earthly languages. In Mantong, each sound had a hidden meaning, and by applying this formula to any word in any language, one could decode a secret meaning to any word, name or phrase. Editor Ray Palmer applied the Mantong formula to several words, and said he realized Shaver was onto something. According to Palmer (in his autobiography The Secret World), Palmer wrote back to Shaver, asking how he had learned of Mantong. Shaver responded with an approximately 10,000 word document entitled "A Warning to Future Man". Shaver wrote of extremely advanced prehistoric races who had built cavern cities inside the Earth before abandoning Earth for another planet due to damaging radiation from the Sun. Those ancients also abandoned some of their own offspring here, a minority of whom remained noble and human "Teros", while most degenerated over time into a population of mentally impaired sadists known as "Deros" — short for "detrimental robots". Shaver's "robots" were not mechanical constructs, but were robot-like due to their savage behavior. These Deros still lived in the cave cities, according to Shaver, kidnapping surface-dwelling people by the thousands for meat or torture. With the sophisticated "ray" machinery that the great ancient races had left behind, they spied on people and projected tormenting thoughts and voices into our minds (reminiscent of schizophrenia's "influencing machines" such as the Air loom). Deros could be blamed for nearly all misfortunes, from minor "accidental" injuries or illnesses to airplane crashes and catastrophic natural disasters. Women especially were singled out for brutal treatment, including rape, and Mike Dash notes that "[s]ado-masochism was one of the prominent themes of Shaver's writings".[5] Though generally confined to their caves, Shaver claimed that the Deros sometimes traveled with spaceships or rockets, and had dealings with equally evil extraterrestrial beings. Shaver claimed to possess first-hand knowledge of the Deros and their caves, insisting he had been their prisoner for several years.

He either read the same article, or somehow had the same knowledge of these Deros.
Rhino - Have you tried (or would you try) speaking Mantong in the Hypogeum?

reply to post by Thorneblood

I love reading about the Shaver Mysteries. There is something to them (maybe not exactly what he stated, but it seems like he saw something) Let my digress though, I just finished reading a National Geographic from May 1920 (thanks to this thread). It was very informative on this topic. I'm going to do some more reading, and get back with something more constructive.

And don't get the idea I have a wall to wall collection of Nat-Geo, I just have the collection that anyone can buy for their own computer (very useful for researching)

***Up-Date***

I did find another article from November 1977 in Nat-Geo About these ruins on Malta. I'll have a read on that to see if there is anything new to add to this discussion.