18th century wall unearthed outside Valletta

The remnants of the outer wall of an 18th century ditch built to boost Valletta's defences have just been unearthed outside the capital city.

"The counterscarp wall, partly hewn from rock and topped by a few courses of masonry, was discovered during excavation works taking place near the RAF war memorial outside the bus terminus," Heritage Malta's Stephen Spiteri said.

It originally formed part of the advanced ditch of Valletta's outer-work fortifications.

"By the end of the 18th century, Laparelli's original fortifications had been developed, by a succession of military engineers, into a complex system of defences designed to add a degree of defence in-depth to the main bastioned land front, mainly through the addition of various devices such as counterguards, a lunette, an advanced ditch, a covert-way with traverses and a glacis," he said.

The construction of the glacis, covert-way and advanced ditch, in particular, were the product of the additions made by French military engineers, under the direction of Renè Jacob de Tignè and his deputy Charles Francois de Mondion, in the early decades of the 18th century.

"This same stretch of counterscarp wall, which supported the covert-way, can be seen in many a late 19th century photograph taken from the Valetta bastions (see picture), which show the outer-works of Valletta with the church and townhouses of Floriana in the background."

Mr Spiteri said these outer-works remained standing until well after the war when they were eventually cut down and filled in with earth and debris to provide a level esplanade over which was eventually built the Triton Fountain.

The fountain replaced what was known as St Magdalene Ravelin, a retrenched lunette (a type of fortification) that guarded the main entrance gate into Valletta.

He said the surviving stretch of counterscarp consisted of a battered (sloping) rock-hewn scarp topped by the lower course of a masonry revetment shaped to fit the contours of the bedrock in the typical fashion adopted for rampart construction.

"The particular position and orientation of this unearthed stretch of wall, at an angle to the main Porta Reale curtain wall, suggests that it was that part of the counterscarp which formed the gorge of the left place-of-arms along the covert-way," Mr Spiteri explained. (This is shown to the left of the photo near the rising ramps known as pas-de-souris).