Publishers:The Black Seal is

published twice yearlyby the

Brichester University Press,74 Union Street,

Farnborough, HampshireGU14 7QA

United Kingdom

ISSN:1476-1939

Product Code:BUP103E

“We few, we happyfew, we band

of ruthlessbastards.”

Internet:The Black Seal’s web site is:www.theblackseal.org

Submissions:Please check our website for details of our

submissions policy

d20 Cthulhu:All d20 Cthulhu material

is presented in squarebrackets: [ ] or as d20

stat blocks

Alien LandscapeL.Abdul Baan © 2004

The BLACK SEAL #3

Volume 1 Number 3Spring 2004

Terra Occulta:An Atlas of StrangePlacesBy Nick Brownlow, DavidConyers,Adam Crossingham& Daniel Harms

Page 4

Unusual Suspects:The Shragged ManBy Brian Boyington

Page 11

A Road Less Travelled:A Rough Guide toFighting Evil in a HotCountryBy Jonathan Turner

Page 13

The Spiralling:A PISCES Assignmentinto the Heart of theCongoBy David Conyers

Page 27

The British Museum:London's Centres ofKnowledge, part oneBy David Conyers

Page 44

Rare and Unusual:Paranormal Artefacts atthe British MuseumBy David Conyers & WilliamJones, with Phil Ward

Page 50

CagesBy Nick Brownlow & P.J. Holden

Page 55

False Mythologies:How a Euro CultManipulates Memory forthe Benefit ofGhatanothoaBy Wood Ingham

Page 60

The Further Files ofProfessor GrantEmerson: Report onNYC Burn VictimBy Graeme Price

Page 71

Resolution Zero:The United Nations andthe Starkweather MooreConspiracyBy Daniel Harms, with David Conyers & Adam Crossingham

Page 73

Dangerous Places:Timsdown WestBy Ben Counter

Page 87

Contains: One TibetanGodBy Davide Mana

Page 91

Sam

ple

file

Editor & Layout:Adam “The Vicar” CrossinghamCo-editor & Webmonkey:Nick “No Nickname Nick” BrownlowVibes:Jonathan “Mad Arab” TurnerAssociate Editor:Shane IveyGraphic Design:L.Abdul Baan

Proofreading:L.Abdul Baan, Dan“Encyclopedia” Harms,“Got”Wood Ingham, Graeme“Ebola” Price & Phil Ward

Hon. Kitty Meister:Phil “Secure” Ward

Articles:All articles are © 2003, 2004 by theirrespective authors: Brian Boyington, NickBrownlow, David Conyers, Ben Counter,Adam Crossingham, Daniel Harms, WoodIngham,William Jones, Davide Mana, GraemePrice, Jonathan Turner & Phil Ward

Artwork:All artwork is © 2002, 2003, 2004 by theirrespective artists.L.Abdul Baan: pages front cover, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8,9, 10, 50, 51, 52 & 53Neil Beattie: pages 28, 30, 35, 39, 40, 41, 43 &back coverBrian Boyington: pages 11 & 12

David Conyers: page 6, 8, 13 & 30Robert Corcoran page 2Sarah Evans: pages 88, 89 & 90Paul J. Holden: pages 55, 56, 57, 58, & 59David Lee Ingersoll: pages 3, 20, 21, 22, 23,25, 71, 75, 79, 82, 83, 84, 85 & 86Tim Joyner: pages 65, 67, 68, 69 & 70Nick Lowson: page 53Natalie Sandells: pages 92, 94, 96 & 98

Maps & Diagrams:David Conyers © 2003 pages 31, 45, 46, 48,77 & 80Koen Goorickx © 2004 page 88

Unofficial:All material in this magazine is to beconsidered unofficial and non-canon in theworld of Delta Green and PISCES, althoughevery attempt has been made to checkexisting facts and conform to the publishedworld view. It is up to individual Keeperswhat material they shall incorporate intotheir view of Delta Green.

Legalese:Call of Cthulhu ® is Chaosium Inc.’strademarked role-playing game of horrorand wonder. Call of Cthulhu is theRegistered Trademark of Chaosium Inc., andis used with their permission. Chaosium Inc.is the Registered Trademark of ChaosiumInc.

Published by arrangement with the DeltaGreen Partnership.The intellectual property

known as Delta Green is ™ and © the DeltaGreen Partnership, who has licensed its usehere. The contents of this document are ©Brian Boyington, Nick Brownlow, DavidConyers, Ben Counter, Adam Crossingham,Daniel Harms,Wood Ingham,William Jones,Davide Mana, Graeme Price, Jonathan Turner& Phil Ward, excepting those elements thatare components of the Delta Greenintellectual property. The Delta Green logois a trademark of the Delta GreenPartnership and is used with permission.

This document contains material for usewith Wizards of the Coast's Call of CthulhuRole-playing Game for the d20 System™and contains no Open Game Content.Wizards of the Coast®, D&D®, andDungeons and Dragons® are RegisteredTrademarks of Wizards of the Coast, Inc., asubsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. d20™ and d20System™ are Trademarks of Wizards of theCoast, Inc.

No infringement of copyrights, trademarks,or intellec-tual propertyis intendedby thisdocument.

Elder Things in FlightNeil Beatty © 2004

Welcome to the third issue of The Black Seal. I had hoped to publish earlier this year but a number of factors haveconspired to hold up production.

It seems that the good times have finally returned to Chaosium and 2004 looks like it may be finally the yearof Call of Cthulhu’s return to proper production. This year has already seen the release of Cthulhu: Dark Ages.Whilst this new setting won’t be supported by The Black Seal, we applaud the decision to release it. Together withthe launch of the Miskatonic University Library Association Monograph series Chaosium seems to be increasingits output slowly but surely.

On the other hand Pagan Publishing seems incredibly quiet. The Delta Green novel ‘Denied to the Enemy’ andthe long-awaited reprint of Delta Green with d20 Cthulhu stats are all reported to be on their way, but so far havenot made an appearance.

Another piece of good news is the imminent release of ‘Worlds of Cthulhu’ magazine. I’m biased reporting this,because I’m the Editor of the magazine. Pegasus Press of Germany will be producing a twice-yearly glossymagazine dedicated to all settings and systems of Call of Cthulhu. I know Worlds of Cthulhu will be a success because Keith ‘Doc’ Herber is Chief Editor, and Frank Heller, editor of Worlds’German mother magazine ‘Cthuloide Welten’ is overseeing the whole process. Worlds of Cthulhu should be in agames shop near you in August. Whilst you are waiting you cna check out Worlds website at:www.worldsofcthulhu.com.

Look out for the next appearance of The Black Seal in the next 12 months. The fourth issue will be a specialissue titled ‘The Black Seal’s ‘Nam: the conflicts, the land, the people, the mythos’. We will be producing material for theperiod 1945 to 1975 in Vietnam ranging from character generation to scenarios and mini-campaigns. We will returnto our normal mix of material in issue five.

In the meantime enjoy this issue’s mix of articles and scenarios.Adam Crossingham, Editor

Sam

ple

file

The Black Seal #34

Truth is often stranger than fiction, and thekind of high weirdness that’s eminently suitablefor inclusion in a Call of Cthulhu game is rifeeven in the real world. Terra Occulta isintended to serve as your guide to this strangeplanet we live on; a catalogue of the bizarre andthe esoteric that the enterprising Keeper iswelcome to plunder for their campaign. In this,the first in a series of irregular columns, we castour single all-seeing eye over those lesserknown places of mystery around the globe.

Ark of the Covenant Âksum, Ethiopia

The legends of the Ark of the Covenant aremany. A wooden box decorated with goldlinings overlaid with a golden lid with twocherubs standing with wings outspread, theArk holds the Ten Commandments, given toMoses by God and written on stone tablets inthe 13th century B.C. King Solomon gainedpossession of the commandments and the arkand kept them in his temple in Jerusalem from955 B.C. onward, but they had disappeared by587 B.C., when Nebuchadnezzar’s armydestroyed that city searching for them. For thelast 25 centuries, the ark has been lost tohistory. In that time many a knight, adventurer,and crusader has scoured the world seeking it.

None, of course, ever found it, although thequest has been made famous through theIndiana Jones movie Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Today, reputed sites for the location of theArk of the Covenant are many. But the mostpopular theory has the ark kept in a plain stonetemple next to Saint Mary of Zion Church inÂksum, Ethiopia.

Âksum (or Axum) is the holiest city inEthiopia and the first place in Africa whereChristianity was officially declared a nationalreligion in the Fourth Century A.D. This ark islocked away in the temple and no one isallowed to look at it. Protected by a metre-highfence, the ark is guarded by an unarmed monkwho will spend the rest of his life inside thetemple. In return for his service to God he isthe only person permitted into the innersanctum to gaze upon the ornate box and itscontents. To date there have been 30 guardians,many of whom have reputedly lived 100 yearsor more. The robes of the previous 30guardians are on display in the church.

Although the ark cannot be viewed, thechurch does hold a collection of impressivereligious and historical artefacts includingbibles, crosses, and crowns. Some of theseitems, the monks claim, are taken from theoriginal Temple of Solomon and brought toEthiopia by the Queen of Sheba when sheconstructed her capital in today’s neighbouringcountry of Eritrea. These objects include metalforks, bronze bowls, and two silver trumpetsthat exactly match those depicted in the Archof Titus, found in Rome, commemorating theRoman conquest of Jerusalem and thedestruction of Solomon’s Temple. During theirreigns, King Solomon and the Queen of Shebahad a son, Menelik, who may have stolen theark from Solomon and taken it to Ethiopia.

Verifying that the Saint Mary of ZionChurch actually holds the Ark of the Covenant

is impossible so long as no one but theguardian is allowed to look upon this relic.

Black Mountain Cooktown, Queensland,Australia

In the tropic north of Australia, some 26kilometres south of Cooktown, lies BlackMountain. Known to the local aboriginals asKalkajaka, the name literally translates as ‘ThePlace of the Spear,’ or more loosely as ‘TheMountain of Death.’ Not without goodreason—the number of disappearancesassociated with Black Mountain is staggeringlyhigh.

The first recorded disappearance was in1877, when a farmer on his horse, out lookingfor his cattle, was never seen again. Not onlydid he disappear, but so too did his mount andall his livestock. Thirteen years later,Cooktown-based Constable Ryan vanishedwhile chasing a criminal in the scrub on theedge of the mountain. Constable and quarryventured into a cave, but neither returned. Inanother tale, a station owner by the name ofHarry Owens went looking for his cattle andnever returned. Not only did he disappear butalso so did his partner and an aboriginal policesergeant who was searching for him. On the

“This planet is haunted by us; the other occupants just evade boredomby filling our skies and seas with monsters.” —John Keel

Sam

ple

file

Spring 2004

same case, two more police entered a cave tocontinue the hunt for the missing men, butonly one returned. He was so shaken by theexperience that he never talked about what hesaw. The list goes on.

Although surrounded by tropicalrainforests, Black Mountain has no soilwhatsoever and thus has very little vegetation.The majority of the mountain consists of hugeboulders of grey granite coated in layers ofiron and manganese oxides, which are stackedon top of each other from a height of 120metres above sea level to its peak at 420 metres.Across the mountain, huge holes betweenboulders make climbing treacherous. Theseholes could be a rational explanation for thenumerous disappearances, for to fall down oneof these pitch-black pits would likely be fatal.However, wallabies, pythons, and thousands ofbats and frogs live on the mountain, suggestingthat water pools in the holes. The rock of BlackMountain has another peculiar quality: it givesoff a peculiar metal ring when struck.

Aboriginal legends shed some light on themountain. In one tale, a sorcerer created BlackMountain from the Dreamtime. He had theability to camouflage himself like a chameleonand a taste for human flesh, and it is said hisspirit still lurks in the rock, taking people andcattle when he becomes hungry. Anotherexplanation is that during the early period ofsettlement, Europeans massacred dozens ofthe local aboriginal people, and their ghostscontinue to take revenge on other Europeans.

Whatever the explanation, scores ofpeople have disappeared into Black Mountain,leaving no trace at all behind.

Clapham WoodsWest Sussex, Great BritainClapham Woods and the quiet 13th-centuryvillage of Clapham lie just a few miles north of

the seaside town of Worthing in West Sussex.In the mid-1960s Clapham Woods were ahotspot of UFO activity, and enthusiasts andserious researchers alike descended onClapham. Soon, however, the UFO spottersbegan to experience other unusual phenomena,reporting encounters with patches of highlymobile black mist, fox-headed apparitions, andvarious poltergeist phenomena.

In the 1970s, new mysteries emergedwhen dogs began to regularly go missing in thewoods. In some cases the missing animalswould simply never be seen again, whilst inothers they would be found crippled or mad,foaming at the mouth. Four people—includinga retired vicar and a police constable—werefound dead in or around the woods over a ten-year period during the 1970s and early 1980s.Only one of the cases was officially designated‘murder’—the bodies of the other threevictims being too badly decomposed for thecoroner to ascertain cause of death.

In their 1987 book The Demonic Connection,Toyne Newton and Charles Walker alleged thatthe woods were being used for rituals by asatanic cult calling itself ‘The Friends ofHecate.’ Walker had been investigatingClapham Woods for nearly 20 years, andmaintained that in 1978 he had been contactedby an initiate of the cult, who claimed that theywere behind the abductions and that the dogswere being sacrificed to the triple-headed

goddess Hecate—an ancient Greek deityassociated with the underworld and favouredby witches. Clapham Woods, he said, was aplace of power and the cult wanted it forthemselves. The initiate also claimed that theFriends of Hecate had membership in highplaces, and that if Walker continued hisinvestigations the cult would take action againsthim.

In October 1987, the unexpectedly savagewinds and rain of the ‘Great Storm’ sweptacross south England, felling many trees inClapham Woods and changing the landscape ofthe area forever. Walker reported that thedamage caused by the storm, combined withthe media interest generated by The DemonicConnection, seemed to cause the cult to abandonthe area. In the mid-1990s, however, he beganto notice signs of occult activity in the woodsagain—fire damage, makeshift altars, andscattered animal remains. The Friends ofHecate, it seemed, had returned.

In summer 2002, an episode of theparanormal investigation/reality TV show TheScream Team was filmed in the woods. Theprogramme-makers’ all-night vigil passedwithout incident, although the two psychicswho accompanied the TV crew made someinteresting observations. One reported sensingthe presence of a non-human ‘intelligence’ inthe woods, something old and powerful thatevaded all her attempts to make contact with it.Another predicted the murder of a local girl innine months time. Her killer, he suggested,would be a local man of good social standing.So far, nothing has happened…

The Doorway of Aramu MuruAncasayo, Puno, PeruTwelve kilometres outside the village ofAncasayo, located a short walk from theCarretera Pan Americana highway running

Terra Occulta

5

Artefact

Haunting

Monster

Ruin

UFO

Sam

ple

file

from Puno to the Bolivian frontier, is theDoorway of Aramu Muru. The local Aymarapeople call the huge rock carving ‘the Gate ofthe Gods’ or ‘the Gate of the Spirits,’ and it liesat the head of the Valley of Spirits, where localshamans have conducted sacred and secretceremonies for centuries. The doorway is lessthan 11 kilometres from Lake Titicaca, wherethe supreme Incan sky god Viracocha is said tohave created the Sun, Moon, stars, and all livingthings.

The doorway is a smooth area about sevenmetres high and wide, carved into the naturalcliff face. Two tubes carved at the left and rightedges are said to represent male and femaleenergy. Located in the centre bottom is a T-shaped niche with a very wide down-stroke.Between the cross-section and down-stroke is asmaller indentation, which is at the right heightfor a person’s ‘third eye’ if someone knelt in theniche.

Local legends say that people who went tothe doorway, particularly at night, disappeared,never to return. Local people other thanshamans will not venture close. There alsolegends of a vast network of tunnels beneathSouth America, particularly the Andes andLake Titicaca. Some say that these tunnels linkto the Inner Earth, an Inner Kingdom,Shambhala, or even other dimensions.

The doorway is intimately associated withAramu Muru (also known as Manco Capac,founder of the Incan Empire), the LemurianMaster Sage and Keeper of Scrolls who cameto the Andes before Lemuria sank below thePacific Ocean bearing the Golden Sun Disk.Amaru Muru also brought with him themystery school tradition of Serpent Wisdom,and founded the Solar Brotherhood of theSeven Rays. Near Lake Titicaca, Amaru Murucreated the underground Monastery of theSeven Rays where the Golden Sun Disk waskept. Members of the Solar or SerpentBrotherhood were known as ‘Serpents’ or‘Amarus,’ and it is said that the Amarus kepttheir traditions alive after the Spanish conquest.

After the Spanish conquest, theConquistadors pursued Aramu Muru topossess the power of the Golden Sun Disk. Hefled into the Hayu Marca Mountains to escape,eventually reaching the doorway. There,shamans welcomed him and observed hisrituals at the doorway. After Amaru Muruplaced the Golden Sun Disk into theindentation of the doorway, a portal openedup, spilling blue light from a now-revealed

tunnel that led away into the rock. AmaruMuru is said to have stepped through the portal‘into eternity.’

El PaititiParque Nacional Manu, Peru

In the early 16th century, the Incas commandedone of the largest empires ever seen in theAmericas, ruling over 20 million people and afifth of South America. For a period of 100years they had conquered virtually everyAndean civilisation from Ecuador to thenorthern reaches of modern-day Chile andArgentina. Their capital city was Cuzco, alsocalled Tawantinsuyo, ‘The Four Quarters of theEmpire.’

In 1532 the Incan Empire, already at warwith itself, was destroyed by conquistadorsfrom Spain; and so the glory of Tawantinsuyocame to an end.

During the fighting many Incans werekilled and enslaved, and others surrendered andsubmitted to Spanish rule, but a few continuedto fight on. The most successful of these wasTupac Amaru, who established a base in theVilcabamba mountain forests and held outagainst the conquistadors for 40 years. In 1572the Spanish discovered Tupac Amaru’s hideoutand led a force against him, defeating his forcesand executing him by drawing and quartering ina public arena.

But the Incans had anticipated theSpaniards’ move and removed all their treasuresof gold, silver, and turquoise that the Spanishloved so much, and hid them in the easternquarter of their empire, in a secret city in theAmazon jungle called El Paititi. When theSpanish learnt of the existence of El Paititi,they sent 80 men accompanied by 200 AndeanIndians into the jungles to find the Incantreasures. Unfortunately for them, not even theIndians they took with them knew how to findfood in the jungle, nor did they know how toavoid or cure the diseases that are commonbeneath the green canopy. Most of theexpedition died from malaria, starvation,insect-borne infections, intestinal worms eatingaway at their guts, and attacks by Amazoniantribes who killed them one by one withpoisoned blowgun needles. The survivorsturned back, beaten; El Paititi, which means ‘OfItself,’ was never found. The city passed intolegend.

Like El Dorado, El Paititi remainsundiscovered, protected in its green world.

Historians, archaeologists, and explorersbelieve that the most probable location of thislost city—if it exists—is in Parque NationalManu (National Park of Manu), a bio-reservecontaining an abundance of Amazoniananimals and plants. While Manu Park is massiveand is visited by hundreds of thousands oftourists each year, only a few areas of the parkare open to visitors; most of it is inaccessible.Even driving to the Park from Cuzco, a journeyof no more than a couple of hundredkilometres, can take up to seven days becausethe roads are often flooded, washed away,subject to landslides, or blocked by fallen trees.Flying is much quicker, taking half an hour atthe most, and once in Manu the Amazonianjungle is so thick that it is impossible to travelanywhere except by aeroplane or boat; but eventhen there are only certain places where theseforms of transport can take you.

If El Paititi is to be found in Manu, theonly way to find it is to walk into the jungle,carving out a path with machetes and lots ofdetermination. Today, expeditions still set outhoping to discover El Paititi and its treasures;but while petroglyphs have been found in largenumbers in Manu, nothing conclusivesuggesting a lost city and a wealth of gold andsilver has been found.

The Ghosts of PluckleyKent, Great Britain

The small village of Pluckley in southeastGreat Britain has made it into the GuinnessBook of Records for having the mosthauntings in England.

With a population of 1,000 people,Pluckley is situated on the edge ofAndredsweald, an ancient Saxon forest alsoknown as ‘the Screaming Woods,’ which isamongst the oldest woodlands in England.Pluckley, however, is more famous because it ishome to at least half a dozen ghosts—whichhave been seen by most of the villagers.

The most famous of all the ghosts is ‘theCoach and the Horses,’ a spectral carriage seenas recently as 1997, which travels down ForgeHill toward Maltman’s Hill and then turnsaround to return to the Old Forge. Mostaccounts report two horses, occasionallyheadless, and a four-wheeled carriage but rarelya driver. Others have heard but not seen thecarriage clambering across cobbled stones.

Another popular ghost is ‘theHighwayman,’ who haunts a place now calledFright Corner. An 18th-century legend tells of

The Black Seal #36

Strange Places, Strange Things

Sam

ple

file

Spring 2004

a highwayman who hid in a hollow of a tree toescape officers of the law. Unfortunately hishorse did not ride on but instead startedgrazing, and gave away his position. One of theofficers snuck up to the hollow tree andplunged his sword through a knothole, piercingthe highwayman through the heart. The ghostlyact of this killing is supposed to play out everynight at the very spot of the Highwayman’sdeath.

At the Church of Saint Nicolas there hasbeen seen a ghost believed to be Lady Dering,a wife of one of the Lords of Pluckley fromthe 12th century, who had a stillborn childwhich was then buried in an unmarked grave.Legend has it that she later died at a young ageand was buried in a sumptuous gown holding abrilliant red rose. Her body was placed insideseven lead coffins, one inside the other, thenlocked away in a vault under the church. Herghost is said to wander the churchyard at night,sobbing bitterly, searching for the grave of herunacknowledged child. There is a similar tale ofanother beautiful young woman, ‘the WhiteLady of the Manor House’ of SurrendenDering, often seen gliding through the manor’slibrary; she may have been a Dering herself.

Other ghost stories include a worker in aclay-pit near the Pluckley railway station whowas smothered to death when a wall of clay fellon top of him; at night his screams are stillsometimes heard just as when he died.

Rose Court is a house haunted by itsprevious owner, a woman who killed herselfdrinking a concoction of ivy and crushedpoisonous berries. Her ghost is only seenbetween four and five in the afternoon, thesame time that she killed herself.

On Pinnock Bridge there is the apparitionof an old, pipe-smoking gypsy woman whoaccidentally set herself alight, seen today as amisty figure by the occasional passer-by.

Then there is the Colonel, who hunghimself from a tree in Park Wood; but thewood was levelled in 1965 for agriculturalpurposes and the Colonel hasn’t been seensince. Similarly, in 1920 there was aschoolmaster who hung himself, and his ghosthas been seen wandering around the oldwindmill or swinging from a rope on a tree.This windmill is also haunted, for in 1939 it wasstruck down by lightning and quickly burned tothe ground; its ghost is seen just before athunderstorm breaks.

Across town, in a pale-grey mansion calledGreystones built in 1863, one of Pluckley’smost regularly sighted ghosts, a monk, patrolsthe grounds. Similarly, in the house named TheBlack Horse lives a poltergeist that hidesobjects; the objects show up after a time inprominently visible places where they were notfound before.

Probably the strangest ghost in thisunusual town is the old lady who sits herself ata table by the window in The Dering Arms inn.So clearly visible is she that many have

mistaken her for a living customer. But as soonas she is commented upon or approached, sheimmediately vanishes into thin air.

All these hauntings have beendocumented for at least 80 years, but due to thelarge number of tourists that now visit thetown to hunt ghosts the locals have beenforced to play down the supernatural aspects oftheir home. That doesn’t stop busloads oftourists, especially at Halloween, scouring thetown for ghosts, or authors from writing bookson the village and its phenomena.

Hal Saflieni Hypogeum Burial Street, Paola, Malta

Behind a classically proportioned Italianatedoor in a stuccoed wall on a residential streetlies a unique prehistoric subterranean temple.Regarded as the jewel of Malta’s many neolithictemples, the Hal Saflieni Hypogeum is amysterious maze of three superimposed levelsand 800 square metres of tunnels andchambers. The Hypogeum is only a fewhundred metres from the Tarxien temple,which is contemporary with some parts of theHypogeum, and the two may have formed onewhole complex in the past.

Designated an UNESCO World Heritagesite in 1980, and closed to the general public in1991 for major conservation work that costUNESCO £850,000, the Hypogeum reopenedin October 2000, but today only 200 people aday can visit the complex. The conservationwork is impressive, having installed climatecontrol systems, air locks, low-level lightinginhibiting algae growth, and removable visitorwalkways. The surrounding leaking sewers werereplaced, and the buildings above theHypogeum, which led to its initial discovery,were demolished to make way for anarchaeological excavation of its upper levelsand a visitors’ centre hung from steelcantilevers. Tickets to the Hypogeum cost Lm3.00 (£4.75) and must be bought in advance.

The Hypogeum was first discoveredsometime between 1899 and 1902, when

builders digging cisterns for new housingabove the site broke into one of the chambers.Their discovery was kept from the authoritiesuntil the houses were finished, and in themeantime building waste dumped in the upperlevels of the complex caused further damage.The Hypogeum’s existence was revealed in1902.

The first archaeological investigation wasundertaken by a Jesuit priest, antiquarian andfolklorist Father Emmanuel Magri, whoconducted investigations until 1905. He foundthat the buildings above hampered access, andthat the site was badly waterlogged. Magri’sactions are controversial, as he cleared thecentral chambers in an unscientific manner: Norecords of context or association were made,and the disarticulated bones that filled thechambers were simply disposed of. Magri diedin Sfax, Tunisia in 1907 whilst on the missionthat curtailed his excavations at an apparentlyfruitful stage, and his archaeological records, ifthere were any, have never been recovered.

The remainder of the complex wasproperly excavated between 1905 and 1909 bySir Temistocles Zammit (Curator of Malta’sArchaeology Museum) according to thestandards of the time. Many of the niches offfrom the main chambers were also filled withdisarticulated bones. Zammit calculated that6,000 to 7,000 people had been interred in thecomplex, but without the evidence fromMagri’s excavations these figures are merely anestimate. Many amulets, figurines and vaseswere also recovered, the most famous of beingthe Sleeping Lady, a reclining female figure,naked to the waist with a small head andexaggerated hips, thought to be arepresentation of fertility or slumber.

Visitors today find a complex arrangementof passageways, irregular chambers, halls, andniches that were cut from the limestone rockwithout metal tools and mimic the trilithonentrance and corbelled roof features ofmegalithic temples found elsewhere on Malta.

The Hypogeum is most famous for itspainted rooms. The Main Chamber’s wallsurfaces are washed in red ochre with an area ofblack and white chequers; the Oracle Room,with its acoustic effects that affect only malevoices, has red ochre swirls and blobs; theUnfinished Chamber is decorated with rows ofspirals and honeycombs; a black bull frescodecorates the ‘Holy of Holies’.

Archaeological evidence suggests that thecomplex was in use from 3,800 to 2,500 B.C.,and that its uses changed over time as its roleevolved from sanctuary to necropolis. Theartefacts found match those at other above-ground temples, and several rooms were foundabandoned and unfinished. Zammit found theHoly of Holies unfinished and full of water,and it has been suggested that it was used forgrain storage. The many disarticulated remainssuggest the ancient Maltese had a strong senseof community and reverence for a shared

Terra Occulta

7

Sam

ple

file