Monday, April 24, 2006

GĦAR DALAM

When one reaches the entrance to Għar Dalam (Cave of Darkness) in Malta, one is greeted by the buzz of bees; many, many buzzes of many, many bees are heard. For those brave enough to brave the buzzing bees, there is a sign.



Looking into the cave, one can see electric lights illuminating the path going toward darkness.



Here is another view from inside the cave looking outwards.



The cave has both stalactites, hanging from the ceiling, and stalagmites building up from the floor. Below is a stalagmite.



According to the write ups, this cave was home to people as long as 5000 years ago, or 3800 years ago according to another account. At any rate, there are remains of pots, and bones of men from ages ago and, from even longer ago, there are the fossilised bones of animals long gone from the island including dwarf elephants and dwarf hippopotami as well as red deer, brown bear, wolf, fox, and giant swans.

As one of my art projects for the day, I made up a photo montage of cave, bones, words and a ghostly figure in the cave.



(Yes the Maltese have an h printed like ħ or Ħ used for the letter when it is not silent.)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Aha, cave art.

KaliPamp said...

i wish i had made it to this site. thank you for sharing the visit.
rika

robin andrea said...

I love the montage, OW. It's really lovely.

Ontario Wanderer said...

P, Yes, and I did not have to hold any of that nasty black or red stuff in my mouth to blow on the walls either.

R, Maybe next year?

RD, Thank you, it was fun to do!