The Hypogeum of Hal Saflieni: An Ancient cave system with some very eerie mysteries and even eerier acoustic abilities.

The Hypogeum of Ħal-Saflieni is a Neolithic subterranean structure dating to the Saflieni phase (3300 – 3000 BC) in Maltese prehistory, located in Paola, Malta. It is often simply referred to as the Hypogeum (Maltese: Ipoġew), literally meaning "underground" in Greek. The Hypogeum is thought to have been a sanctuary and necropolis, with the remains of more than 7,000 individuals documented by archeologists,^[1] and is among the best preserved examples of the Maltese temple building culture that also produced the Megalithic Temples and Xagħra Stone Circle. (From Wikipedia).

This awesome underground complex was discovered in 1902 and much of what was discovered then has been hidden, lost or suppressed. First of all, when archaeologists first opened the rediscovered tomb they made a very gruesome discovery.

One particularly interesting fact about the Hypogeum is that when it was discovered, 7,000 skeletons were found piled within the chambers.  What’s more is that they had a unique characteristic – elongated skulls – and one of the skulls (out of only a handful that survived) lacked the Fossa median (the join that runs along the top of the skull).  It is known that some of the skulls were on display in the Archaeological Museum in Valletta. However, after 1985 all the skulls that had been found in the Hypogeum, along with other elongated skulls found across multiple ancient sites in Malta, disappeared without a trace, and have never been recovered. What remains to testify their existence and their abnormality are the photos of Dr Anton Mifsud, and his colleague Dr Charles Savona Ventura, and their books detailing the abnormalities of the skulls, including: elongation, abnormally developed temporal partitions, and drilled and swollen occiputs.  Supporting the finding is an extract written in the National Geographic magazine in the 1920s describing the first inhabitants of Malta as a race with elongated skulls:

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.
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE January to June, 1920 VOLUME XXXVII

It is, of course, highly suspicious that the evidence for such a significant discovery went missing.  It appears to suggest that someone wished to keep the results of the finding out of public knowledge, and perhaps out of the hands of researchers.

A race of people with elongated skulls, a chamber of unbelievable acoustic properties, and the mysterious disappearance of more than 7,000 skulls makes you think that something very special happened in this place, yet very few people to know about it, and it appears someone wanted it to be this way.  (From ancient-origins.net http://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-europe/hypogeum-hal-saflieni-and-unknown-race-elongated-skulls-001190)

 

     Now if 7,000 skeletons, mostly with elongated skulls wasn’t enough to freak you out wait until you hear about the special acoustic properties of this particular cave system. Remember, this system was built at least 5,000 years ago.

The temple structure uses a careful direction of light from the surface to penetrate into the lower chambers, with intricate patterns painted on portions of the ceiling with ochre, following motifs of spots, spirals and honeycombs.  One of the main chambers, called "The Holy of Holies", appears to be oriented such that light from the winter solstice illuminated its facade from the original opening above. A niche cut in the middle chamber, called the Oracle Room, was possibly designed to project chanting or drumming throughout the rest of the Hypogeum.  (from wikipedia)

According to William Arthur Griffiths, who wrote ‘Malta and its Recently Discovered Prehistoric Temples’, a word spoken in the Oracle room is “magnified a hundredfold and is audible throughout the entire structure.  The effect upon the credulous can be imagined when the oracle spoke and the words came thundering forth through the dark and mysterious place with terrifying impressiveness."  The acoustic properties within the Hypogeum have already been studied extensively. It was found by Maltese composer Ruben Zahra and a research team from Italy that sound resonates at 110 Hz within the Oracle chamber, and this matches the same or similar frequency that has been found in many other ancient chambers around the world, including Newgrange in Ireland.  According to Dr Robert Jahn from Princeton University, it may be the dimensions of the room or the quality of the stone that determines the exact pitch of this echo behavior.  One theory put forward by Paolo Debertolis and Niccolo Bisconti of the Universities of Triests and Siena respectively, is that the chamber was constructed in such a way as to created acoustics that would affect the psyche of people, perhaps to enhance mystical experiences during rituals, and this perspective has received scientific backing.  Dr. Ian Cook of UCLA and colleagues published findings in 2008 of an experiment in which regional brain activity in a number of healthy volunteers was monitored by EEG through exposure to different resonance frequencies. Their findings indicated that at 110 Hz the patterns of activity over the prefrontal cortex abruptly shifted, resulting in a relative deactivation of the language center and a temporary shifting from left to right-sided dominance related to emotional processing. This shifting did not occur at other frequencies.   

Whether it was deliberate or not, the people who spent time in the Hypogeum under conditions that may have included ritual chanting -- were exposing themselves to vibrations that may have impacted their thinking. In addition to stimulating their more creative sides, it appears that an atmosphere of resonant sound in the frequency of 110 would have been “switching on” an area of the brain that bio-behavioral scientists believe relates to mood, empathy and social behavior.  (from ancient-origins.net. http://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology-mysterious-phenomena/experts-unravel-sound-effects-malta-s-hypogeum-hal)

     

     Another interesting tid-bit is that the 110hz range is what male voices typically fall into, female voices do not cause the reverberation because they don’t hit the 110hz pitch! I strongly believe this cave was a temple built by somebody with extensive knowledge of physiology and acoustics with the intention of either brainwashing them or causing mass hypnosis. Could it have been aliens? Why the elongated skulls? Let us not forget that elongated skulls have also been found in South America, Asia and of course ancient Egypt. Mainstream researchers say that ancient people intentionally deformed their skulls by binding in order to elongate them, this explains why so many misshapen skulls have been found, of course, I do believe that some of our ancient ancestors may have done this, yet I believe they were emulating their rulers or Gods. Why would most of the 7,000 skeletons just disappear? Probably the same reason that all the giant skeletons that were found in the US during the turn of the 20^th century were also suppressed, to keep our real ancient history secret. The words and pictures of the original archeologists who investigated the caves resonate (pun intended) profoundly with what was happening within the US by the Smithsonian Institute.  Even National Geographic was convinced our ancient Egyptian ancestors had elongated skulls! There will be plenty more posts in the future about elongated skulls from all over the world, right now I want to get back to the cave. The discovery of the 7,000 skeletons was also reported differently in the original papers, supposedly the bodies were all found in just a few chambers and it seemed as if they were killed at the same time and trying to escape the caves! Of course, that was all suppressed and now even the wiki page says it was probably a crypt or elaborate burial chamber. Again, I can only speculate on the true purpose of these caves and their chambers, but I really don’t think it was intended to be a crypt or burial chamber at least not the whole complex. There were many rooms discovered not just the oracle room, I just decided to focus on that particular room because of the mysterious acoustic qualities, in reality the whole cave system is mysterious, and no one is exactly sure what or who really used these caves and chambers. I could write an entire book about this place. I really suggest you do some of your own research into this awesome and eerie place because I cannot do it the proper justice it deserves in my limited time. This place really does intrigue me and the more I research it, the more questions I have. I should also mention there have been hundreds of Stone age tunnels and cave systems discovered throughout the world, some like Darinkuyu, in Turkey, could have accommodated thousands of people for a year or more. This brings up even more questions. This is why I love doing research and why I continue to dig deeper and deeper (pun?) for the truth. Whether or not I ever find it is inconsequential, all that matters is that I keep trying and keep sharing. I cannot wait to bring you guys more about ancient tunnels and caves and elongated skulls. In the meantime, stay curious and question everything.

Have a great day and I apologize for so much cited material this post but there was just so much about these caves that I wanted to share and just found out about and needed to share. Please check out ancient-origins.net, for more info and as always……..PEACE!!!!!!!!!!!!