Malta, V.

[Mark Kohut]

Great stuff, David, thanks for knowing, getting and posting it. Some, even a lot has come up in our readings here--and on the wiki. Reminds of the whole deep Venus web--huge, bigger than a web somehow--of associations in V.   In fact deep and wide enough to be mythic, I might say, but that's beyond my pay grade. 

What interested me most with my little Malta post was its to-the-presentness of V.s historic time as well. P works his ideas like a fabric-maker one might say. The cloth goes long and seamless. The Catholicism and P's dead endedness re Malta symbolically seem part of the meaning too. 

A--and, given the Virgin notion of Adams from medieval Catholicism, one might even suggest a looser fabric of connective association from this thru The White Goddess in all the Malta history you sent down to The Order of Malta in V's present. 

I never quite noticed before that the ending of V, of nothing under the sea, resonates with that Venus who once came from the sea. No longer. 

Sent from my iPad

> On Jan 9, 2017, at 3:52 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Malta is the home of the oldest temples (underground & constructed) on the planet. "Paola" (remember her?) is the location of one of them.  Malta's temples were wombs, and explicitly devoted to worship a female deity (see "White Goddess").
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypogeum_of_%C4%A6al-Saflieni
> 
> The Hypogeum of Ħal-Saflieni is a 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 originally a sanctuary, but it became a necropolis in prehistoric times, and in fact, the remains of more than 7,000 individuals have been found. It is the only known prehistoric underground temple in the world.
> 
> http://popular-archaeology.com/issue/april-2011/article/of-temples-and-goddesses-in-malta
> 
> LONG BEFORE THE ANCIENT EGYPTIAN PYRAMIDS WERE BUILT, and before the great ziggurats of ancient Mesopotamia were raised, there were monumental temples being erected on the island of Malta. Associated with them were carvings and an assemblage of figurines that speak to us today, though in a language not clearly understood. Scientists and scholars continue poring over the evidence.  Linda Eneix, a noted expert on the ancient remains and temple culture of Malta, relates in first person her thoughts about this fascinating ancient legacy and what it might mean.
> 
> https://sacredsites.com/europe/malta/temples_malta.html
> 
> 
> http://www.art-and-archaeology.com/malta/malta.html
> 
> 
> The prehistoric temples of Malta are unique in all the world. They are the oldest standing stone structures which remain to us from ancient times. The temples date from 4000 - 2500 BC. They are older than Stonehenge, older than the Pyramids. Their architecture is beautiful and inspiring, their scale impressive yet human. Excellently preserved, they were covered with soil from early times and ignored by the long march of history. They were rediscovered and carefully restored by European and native Maltese archaeologists beginning in the 19th century. Because of their uniqueness and beauty, the major temple complexes are deservedly designated as UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
> 
> Little is known about the people who built these megalithic temples. The original inhabitants of the Maltese Islands probably crossed over by sea from Sicily, which lies 58 miles to the north, sometime before 5000 BC. The temple builders were farmers who grew cereals and raised domestic livestock. They worshipped a mother goddess whose type is known from early statuettes found scattered around the Mediterranean. Similar statues are also found on Malta, several being of uniquely large size. We know from physical evidence that worship in the Malta temples included animal sacrifice; beyond this, little is known about the rites and rituals that took place there. Although the temples are large in overall extent, their interior chambers do not have enough room to hold more than a few people at one time. Therefore public worship in large groups, as practiced in typical churches and temples today, would not have been possible.
> 
> David Morris
> 
>> On Mon, Jan 9, 2017 at 10:55 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Right......but ? Key place in V., yes?
>>  "the June Disturbances (as they came to be called) ended"...."The primary question, that of self-rule, was as of 1956 still unresolved." --last page of V.
>> 
>> "Draw a line from Malta to Lampedusa. Call it a radius. Somewhere in that circle....a water-spout appeared.........Astartre's throat naked to the cloudless weather....whitecaps, kelp islands, any of a million flatnesses which should catch thereafter part of the sun's spectrum--showed nothing at all of what came to lie beneath, that quiet June day."---last paragraph in bits of V. 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> On Mon, Jan 9, 2017 at 11:21 AM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Pre-Reformation, EVERYTHING was Catholic (except for everything that was Per-Catholic).
>>> 
>>>> On Mon, Jan 9, 2017 at 10:07 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> Did we know this?:
>>>> 
>>>> "Yes, the Order of Malta is Catholic."
>>>> 
>>>> More previously unknown V. resonances for me, anyway. Including possibly, ideationally, autobiographical, from our once-devout dally Mass-attending Catholic writer. 
>>> 
>> 
> 
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