Half of the Armoury at the Grandmasters' Palace in Valletta was a hive of activity yesterday as a team of Heritage Malta employees moved weapons and suits of armour to another section as part of a revamp of the museum.

Part of the renovation includes the reduction of the number of display cases of different sizes to achieve uniformity of design.

The idea is to have all the artefacts exhibited in chronological order and by type and to include in the main collection pieces that are now in the reserve collection.

Audio guides in Italian, English, French, German and Spanish will then be installed. Information panels will also be set up, but they could not initially be done in more than two languages, English and Maltese, Manuel Magro Conti, the curator, said.

"The problem is that most of the description of arms and armour is rather technical because one would have to explain each and every part of the weapons and the armour. This would make each information panel far too long and detailed for the visitor to take in at one go," he said.

Part of the exhibits, in the form of trophies and helmets, are hung on the wall. The rising damp, however, could lead to deterioration of the artefacts.

Michael Stroud, collection and site executive said: "That will definitely be the result unless the weapons and helmets are conserved regularly and that is our intention from now on.

"Our intention is that the exhibits will be displayed in such a manner that it will be easier to monitor their condition and to conserve them.

"The old armoury was only afflicted by atmospheric humidity while the place where the exhibits are now suffers also from rising damp."

Mr Magro Conti said neither the former Museums Department nor Heritage Malta had had a hand in moving the Armoury to where it is now, a place that used to serve as stables for horses. Some of the stables were below ground level.

"The Armoury used to be housed in another part of the Palace which is where Parliament now meets," Mr Magro Conti noted.

As a result of the upgrade, only half of the Armoury is open at present and visitors are being charged Lm1 instead of Lm2, which is the usual entrance fee.

The Armoury features among the top three most popular sites run by Heritage Malta, managing to attract 113,000 visitors last year. The other two sites are Ggantija with 166,000 and Hagar Qim with 130,000 visitors.