It was public knowledge that until 1985 a number of skulls, found in pre-historic Maltese temples at Taxien, Ggantja and Hal Saflienti, were exposed in the Archaeological Museum in Valletta. They have since disappeared without a trace.
'Only the photographs taken by the Maltese researcher Dr. Anton Mifsud and his colleague, Dr. Charles Savona Ventura, remain to testify the existence of the skulls and prove their abnormality. Books written by the two Maltese doctors, illustrate a collection of skulls that show peculiar abnormalities and/or pathologies. Sometimes inexistent cranial knitting lines, abnormally developed temporal partitions, drilled and swollen occiputs as following recovered traumas, but above all, a strange, lengthened skull, bigger and more peculiar than the others, lacking of the median knitting. The presence of this finding leads to a number of possible hypotheses in consideration of other finds of similar skulls, from Egypt to South America, the particular deformity, unique in the panorama of medical pathology referred to such distant times, (we are talking about approximately 3000 BC) could be an exceptional discovery.
The skulls were all found in the Hal Saflienti hypogeum, where a sacred well was dedicated to the Mother Goddess and where also the small statue of a sleeping goddess was found, associated to a relic with a snake inscription on it. One in particular had a cranium showing a very pronounced dolichocephalous, in other words, a lengthened posterior part of the skullcap, besides the lack of median knitting, technically named "sagitta". This last detail has been considered "impossible" by medics and anatomists, not having analogous pathological cases in international medical literature. It is a characteristic that emphasizes the anomaly of this finding with the result of producing a natural lengthening of the cranium (not due to bandaging or boards as used in pre-Colombian civilizations)'.
It is proposed, on the basis of these findings, that the group of skulls found in the Hypogeum were representative of a group of peoples who were considered of importance (as attested to by the location of their discovery), and who had a natural genetic tendency for elongated skulls, were integrally involved in the activities of the temple builders of the time. Other skulls found in the Brochtorff circle (Hypogeum II), are considered to have had their heads bandaged in order to produce their cranial deformities.
(Extract from Hera Magazine, Italy: 1999)
From NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE January to June, 1920 VOLUME XXXVII
"From an examination of the skeletons of the polished-stone age, it appears that the early inhabitants of Malta were a race of long-skulled people of lower medium height, akin to the early people of Egypt, who spread westward along the north coast of Africa, whence some went to Malta and Sicily and others to Sardinia and Spain."
Interesting article and pics. Very cool!
