In pictures: Malta’s ancient structures as photo backdrops

Old manuals of photography stressed the importance of portraying people against distinctive backdrops.

Several pre-war professional studios commissioned theatre scenographers to paint drop-scenes in front of which the sitters could be immortalised.

Visitor to the Rabat catacombs, c 1930

Pleasant backgrounds contributed to pleasant portraits.

Visitors to a neolithic site in the 1930s

If the photo was not taken in a studio, teachers urged photographers to place the sitters somewhere aesthetically interesting.

Open-air picnic in the temples, from a 1911 album

I have tried to identify how the Maltese megalithic temples and the catacombs fared as photo ambiences.

Countrymen in a neolithic location, by Richard Ellis

One telling detail distinguishes normal open-air photos from those set next to giant stones – camera artists shot people in or next to megaliths mainly not to make the person look more interesting but to provide a sense of scale, of comparison: see how large and impressive this pre-historic structure is and how small the person looks next to it.

Countrymen in a neolithic structure, by Ellis

Often the placement served this dual purpose.

Today, seeing people running all over our sacred thousands-year-old neolithic temples with not a care for conservation and the probability of damages, rightly provokes a sense of outrage.

A 1911 photograph

After excavation, the temples became favourite picnic grounds

Till recently, Jack Tar felt perfectly entitled to scratch graffiti recording for posterity that he was here. After excavation, the temples became favourite picnic grounds – open air, a camera, tea and scones.

Photo taken in Tarxien in the early 1930s by the archaeologist Luigi Maria Ugolini

Lady in a neolithic temple, by Ugolini. Could it be Miss Mari Mercieca?

Luigi Maria Ugolini, the visionary pre-war Italian archaeologist who revolutionised everything we thought we knew about our megalithic culture, took thousands of photographs of Malta’s structures, their decorations and their furniture.

In many, he included a human element – possibly even the Maltese love of his life.

Student in a Malta temple, by Ugolini

Sir Temi Zammit in a neolithic temple

He died, barely 41 years old (a few months after I was born). 

A 1920s photograph of visitors to a temple, signed by Salvatore Lorenzo Cassar

Professional photographers included themselves in their photos of the Neolithic temples.

I rather believe that Salvatore Lorenzo Cassar did that in Malta and Mikiel Farrugia in Gozo’s Ġgantija.

The Gozitan photographer Mikiel Farrugia placed himself in this photo of Ġgantija.

Visitors over the megaliths, by Savatore Lorenzo Cassar

All images from the author’s collections

A 1947 photo of a lady in a Neolithic temple