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METAGEUM '07
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 Hagar Qim, Malta, Vernal Equinox 2007. Photo:Peter B Lloyd |
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Consciousness in the Prehistoric WorldMetageum '07: This week-long event comprised three threads centred on the theme of understanding the consciousness of the people who built the megalithic temples::
It took place on the Vittoriosa Waterfront on the Mediterranean island of Malta, an island noted for its exceptional legacy of prehistoric temples. Proceedings: Proceedings of the conference will be published after the event. |
An interior view of the venue. Photo:Peter B Lloyd |
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Conference thread: In the conference, speakers ranged from archaeologists (both academic and independent), through psychologists and artists, to researchers in esoteric subjects. This conference was intended to present new results of research,and to encourage debate and discussion. It did not hold any particular position on the interpretation of the temples. There are radically different perspectives in circulation, some of which are diametrically opposed to each other. My aim was to create a space in which the evidence and competing claims could be seen, heard, discussed and assessed. Amongst the contributions were remarkable new findings from the excavation of the underground temples at the Brochtorff Circle in Gozo, the island in the north of Malta. In the original schedule, after the morning plenary sessions, attendees could choose to stay for more presentations at the conference venue, or go on field trips to the temples, or go for one or other of the workshops. In practice, almost everyone voted with their feet to go on Margaret Frendo's tours of the temples. The afternoon sessions were therefore reconfigured at short notice to avoid clashing with tours. The worst day was Saturday 10th, which had the best range of talks throughout the day, but a large proportioin of the delegates took the day-trip to see Ggantija. This is definitely a learning point for future Metatopia conferences. |
Metageum at Megalithomania, Glastonbury. |
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Tour thread: Each afternoon, one or more minibuses took a guided tour to one or more of the megalithic temples and other prehistoric sites (e.g. rock-cut tombs and cart ruts). The tours were led by Margaret Frendo, a professional licensed tour guide with several decades of experience of introducing people to the Maltese temples. Margaret's experience extends back to the heady days of the 1980s when goddess groups would perform ceremonies at the temple sites, through to the security-tightened present day. Margaret very generously donated her time for these tours, for which I am very grateful. Feedback I received from delegates who attended her tours was very positive. One of the afternoon trips included a visit to the Archaeology Museum in Valletta to see the rich array of artefacts that have been recovered from excavations of the preshistoric sites. |
Mnajdra temple. Photo:Peter B Lloyd |
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Experiential thread: This is an unusual concept in temple conferences, as it spans a broad range of disciplines: archaeology, psychology, and philosophy on the one hand, and art and music on the other, as well as including esoteric and therapeutic perspectives. I took the view that just talking about the 'megalithic mind' did not reach far enough, and I therefore tried to create opportunities to engage in experiential activities that facilitate the imaginative leap into the Neolithic world view. Some of the workshops were abandoned because of lack of interest (creative painting, pottery, and story-telling themed on the ancient temples), while others proved to be very popular and extra sessions were created (dowsing, and chanting in the Hypogeum), and one was very popular but it was not practical to add extra sessions (trance dance). In this vein, the week-long event started off with an optional 'trance-dance' facilitated by Nicole Harris and David Karla from Australia. The trance-dance evening was intended to provide a sample of what might be termed 'neo-shamanism'. From the feedback I received, that was too naive and optimistic an expectation. Participants did find the exercise worth while, but primarily as a sample of disengaging with the mundane visual world and opening up to the inner world. I also intended further neo-shamanic sessions inside the nearby Kordin III neolithic temple, but this plan was abandoned as the ground was too uneven for safe dancing. |
A blindfold trance-dancer |
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Exhibition Alongside the week-long conference and series of workshops and tours was an art exhibition, open to the general public, showing the art work of painters Jeni Caruana, Anna Grima, Pierre Giusti, and L.Caruana, ceramicists Sina Farrugia and Julie Apap, and photographer Liz Ashton-Hill. Maltese artists Jeni Caruana and Anna Grima are well known for their powerful evocations of the spirit of the megalithic temples. And L.Caruana, who is now based in Paris, creates visionary works, often inspired by the temples of Malta. He is also the author of the Manifesto of Visionary Art - described by Alex Grey as "an intelligent analysis of the worldwide phenomena ... brilliant". I viewed the artistic and creative response as a valid alternative way of approaching the megalithic mind, to reach an empathy with the Neolithic people through authentic creative responses to the Maltese island, its stones, and its ancient temples. I reasoned that creative artwork is valuable in its own right, but it also may illuminate the imagination of prehistoric peoples. Again, I think my conception of the role of art was naive. My impression from speaking from delegates is that the artwork was of value chiefly as a seed for the viewers' own contemplation. Trying to steer people's thoughts to the temples was, in retrospect, sterile and futile. A better intention, which is what actually happened, is to create a rich and suggestive environment in which people can go through whatever thought processes they need to.
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Works by Anna Grima, Jeni Caruana, & L.Caruana |
The Past is Another Country, but The Prehistoric Past is another WorldGlobal scope: Although several of the presentations were specifically on the Maltese temples, the conference encompassed megalithic temples and ritual structures from around the world. England and Europe are richly endowed with a range of types of megalithic structure (such as the stone circle of Boscawen-Un seen here). Each country and culture has its own heritage, and the Maltese megalithic tradition was specific to the island. The Metageum event included speakers, artists, and performers from Malta, the UK, the USA, Canada, France, Germany, Australia, and New Zealand.
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Boscawen-Un, England. Photo:Peter B. Lloyd |
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Vittoriosa: The conference venue was on the waterfront of Vittoriosa, which is one of the Three Cities that stand opposite Valletta across the Grand Harbour. Vittoriosa (or Birgu as it was in its original name and still called in Maltese) was the first centre of modern Malta. It was where the Knights of St John settled and established a fortified town in 1530. It remained a maritime centre for centuries, under the Knights, and then under the British. In this role, it was heavily bombed in the War, and only recently started undergoing substantial redevelopment. To open up the day, and give closure to it, a professional story teller gave a narration on the theme of the megalithic mind, or some theme that pertained to people's experiences during the conference. For the first half of the eight-day Metageum event (3rd to 6th November), story-teller Diana Bewley performed a series of eight interlinked stories that evoked the culture and consciousness of prehistoric Malta. For the second half of the Metageum event (7th to 11th November), the bard Tallyessin (Kevan Manwaring) weaved tales of the island of Avalon during the morning and evening tales. This included the remarkable evening happening on Saturday 10th when Sonya enacted the story, with musical accompaniment by Thomas Anderson (didgeridoo), David Karla (clarinet), Emma (flute), and others on drums. |
Maritime buildings, Vittoriosa. Photo:Peter B. Lloyd |
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Malta is a small island in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, with an unusually rich heritage of megalithic structures, generally designated as 'temples'. It has the oldest free-standing megalithic structures in the world, dating back to 6000 years ago -- a thousand years before the Egyptian pyramids were built, and five hundred years before Stonehenge. Although now ruined, the above-ground megalithic temples in Malta were originally huge, closed-in, multi-chambered buildings, with a single entrance. The archipelago also possesses the uniquely Maltese underground temples or hypogea. |
Vittoriosa from the air |
For some background on the themes of the conference, please see the article written by Peter B. Lloyd in the Malta Independent on 18th March: Metageum ’07: Exploring the megalithic mind.
Themes: The thematic threads of the Metageum megalithic temple conference were:
- Archaeology: excavations and analysis of finds.
- Archaeo-Astronomy: alignments of megalithic structures with sunrise, sunset, and other astronomical events.
- Archaeo-Acoustics: acoustical resonances and echoes within megalithic chambers.
- Altered states of consciousness: there is strong circumstantial evidence that altered states of consciousness played a key role in the original use of megalithic temples.
- Entheogens: did the Neolithic temple users employ hallucinogenic plants in their ceremonies?
- Shamanism: the use of altered states to contact and work with spiritual entities is a worldwide phenomenon and may well have been a feature of Neolithic culture.
- Dreams: can our dreams be used as a subjective route to connecting with the Neolithic imagination?
- Neo-paganism: some forms of paganism continue to thrive as living religions in the modern world, and provide an authentic religious context for the megalithic temples.
- Esoteric perspectives: perspectives outside the modern scientific worldview offer a different angle on the megalithic temples.
- Arts: modern visionary musical and artistic responses to the temples
The speakers in different disciplines were as follows.
Overview
- Erik Davis, a San Franciso-based writer, culture critic, and independent scholar, author of the 'cult classic' Techgnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information (1998), a contributor to Wired magazine, and author of a wide range of essays on his web site. Erik gave an overview of the conference and its themes.
. . . Web site: www.techgnosis.com
Archaeology (academic)
- Dr Caroline Malone, Queens University, Belfast (formerly at Cambridge University, when working on the Maltese projects). Dr Malone was Project Director of Explorations into the conditions of spiritual creativity in Prehistoric Malta, funded by the Templeton Foundation. This one-year project culminated in a conference in Cambridge in December 2006, the published proceedings of which will be available at Metageum. Dr Malone and her team have continued to analyse the unprecedented quantity of data obtained by the project, and she spoke on these results and the remarkable new insights that they give into the use of the Megalithic temples of Malta.
. . . Web site: www.arch.cam.ac.uk/~catm20 . . . [More >>]
- Dr Simon Stoddart. University Senior Lecturer, Fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge University. Dr Stoddart was a Project Director of the Gozo Project, and one of the leaders of the excavation of the Brochtorff Circle (aka the Xaghra Circle), which is a hypogeum in Gozo even larger than the famous Hypogeum of Hal Saflieni. Dr Stoddart spoke on Exploring the Prehistoric Maltese Mind on Beliefs in Death.
. . . Web site: www.arch.cam.ac.uk/~ss16 . . . [More >>]
- Dr Reuben Grima, a well-known professional archaeologist based in Malta: spoke on the intentions of the temple builders.
- Dr Robin Skeates, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Archaeology, Durham University: spoke on Trying to Make Sense of the Maltese Temples: an Archaeology of Sensory Experience and Perception, based on a chapter of a forthcoming book to be published by Oxford University Press, on the multi-sensory experiences and perceptions of the prehistoric inhabitants of the Maltese Islands across a range of different spaces and times, questioning previous art and architecture-dominated archaeologies of Maltese prehistory.
Archaeology (independent)
- Paul Devereux, author, researcher, lecturer, broadcaster based in England. Paul spoke on leading-edge research on the acoustic characteristics of megalithic chambers. He reported preliminary but exciting new results from acoustic measurements of Maltese temples. The experiments were carried out during the conference, in collaboration with Thomas Anderson of ICRL (International Consciousness Research Laboratory).
. . . Web site: www.pauldevereux.co.uk . . . [More >>]
- Thomas Anderson is Research Director of the Acoustics Laboratory of the famous ICRL (International Consciousness Research Laboratory), where he studies sound, color, and geometry in the context of wellness. He worked wth Paul Devereux to measure the acoustic properties of two Maltese temples, the Hypogeum and Tarxien.
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- Dr Anton Mifsud, is a senior consultant in Paediatrics, and a passionate independent archaeologist. His research into the drowned civilisation of Malta, and its possible connection with Malta, formed the basis for the Maltese section of Graham Hancock's book and television documentary, Underworld. Dr Mifsud spoke on Archaeology in Atlantis.
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- Mario Vassallo, amateur archaeologist in Malta, who has carried out extensive measurements and observations of astronomical alignments of the Megalithic temples of Malta. His work can be see on his web sites:
. . . Web site: Sun Worship and the Magnificent Megalithic Temples of Malta
. . . and The Planning and Layout of the Maltese Neolithic Temples . . . [More >>] - Dr Chris Micallef, a professional engineer, amateur archaeologist, and film-maker, who has made special studies of the archaeoastronomy of the Mnajdra temple and the Tal Qadi stone. He spoke on the astronomical alignments of Mnajdra (not just the well-known sunrise algnments), and showed his film on the enigmatic Tal Qadi stone.
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- Stuart Mason is an independent researcher into astronomical alignments of ancient stone structures around the world; he is also founder of The Antiquarian Society in the UK. He spoke on the field work of astrc-archaeology around the world.
. . . Web site: www.theantiquariansociety.com . . . [More >>]
- Dr Hubert Zeitlmair, discoverer of what appear to be underwater megalithic temples off the coast of Malta. Dr Zeitlmair was unable to attend the conference in person as he was called away to urgent business in Germany, but we showed his DVD instead.
. . . Web site: www.maltadiscovery.org . . . [More >>]
- Dudley Levenson, explorer, photographer, and collector of ethnic artefacts, showed illustrations of a wide range of shamanic art and artefacts, and made cross-cultural comparisons that yield insight into shamanism.
. . . Web site: www.inspiredplanet.com . . . [More >>]
- Renate Haupt, a prehistorian, and independent researcher, writer and artist: spoke on dreamtime and the liminality, metaphor and altered state perception of the prehistoric inhabitants of North Africa and their links with Neolithic populations elsewhere.
. . . Web site: www.desertfoxoverland.co.uk . . . [More >>]
- Graham Hancock is the author of the bestsellers Fingerprints of the Gods, Underworld, and Supernatural. His books have sold more than five million copies worldwide and have been translated into 27 languages. His public lectures and TV appearances, including the three-hour series Quest For The Lost Civilisation, have put his ideas before audiences of tens of millions. His book Underworld describes ancient drowned civilisations, including submerged remains off the coast of Malta, and his book Superatural on entheogens and the entities revealed by them
. . . Web site: www.grahamhancock.com . . . [More >>]
- Peter Marshall is a historian and travel writer. He has written fifteen books which are being translated into thirteen different languages. An occasional broadcaster, his circumnavigation of Africa was made into a 6-part TV series and his voyage around Ireland into a BBC Radio series. Among his recent best-selling books is Europe's Lost Civilisation: Uncovering the Mysteries of the Megaliths.
. . . Web site: www.petermarshall.net . . . [More >>]
Neo-Paganism
- Dr Robert Wallis, Associate Professor of Visual Culture and Associate Director MA in Art History, at Richmond, The American International University in London: spoke about place, spirit and sacredness -- the history of shamanism, neo-Shamanism and the implications for heritage management.
- Dr Kathryn Rountree, Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology in the School of Social and Cultural Studies at Massey University, New Zealand, spoke on goddess spirituality and neo-pagan religions, feminism and embodiment, and the contestation of archaeological sites, including Malta’s Neolithic temples; and her current research on present-day witches and Pagans in Malta.
Psychology (Entheogens, Dreams, Hypnosis)
- Craig Sim Webb, a physicist and inventor, author and researcher on dreams and consciousness, a professional speaker, and a musical performing and recording artist: talking and leading workshops on the use of dreams to connect with profound spirit of the megalithic buildings.
. . . Web site: www.dreams.ca . . . [More >>]
- Deborah Marshall-Warren, interactive hypnotherapist: spoke cultural hypnosis.
. . . Web site: www.marshall-warren.com . . . [More >>]
Esoterics
- Hugh Newman, co-editor of Avalon Rising and organiser of the annual Megalithomania event in Glastonbury, England: spoke about: Stone Age Survival: Earth Energies, Megaliths & Ancient Nutrition.
. . . Web sites: www.avalonrising.co.uk and www.megalithomania.co.uk
- Kris Attard, a personal development trainer who has been involved in the field of mental training for a number of years, the author of the Mindscape Manual, with other books in preparation, as well as research on the ancient temples of Malta: spoke on the Sacred Geometry of Maltese Temples.
. . . Web site: www.awarenessworkshops.com . . . [More >>]
- Nataša Pantovic poet, a writer, and a spiritual researcher on self-development, yoga, tantra, alchemy, and higher states of consciousness: spoke on the goddess cult in Malta, and lead midday yoga sessions.
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- Francis Aloisio, Maltese artist: presented his series of fourteen temple paintings, in the light of esoteric speculations on Malta's prehistoric culture.
. . . [More >>]
Music and dance
- Jennifer Berezan, singer-songwriter in California: spoke about her experiences in the Hypogeun, where she recorded her allbum ReTurning.
. . . Web site: www.edgeofwonder.com . . . [More >>]
- Wende Bartley, a Toronto-based composer of electroacoustic music and performance artist: performe the world premiere of her series based on recordings made in five of Malta's megalithic temples; also led chanting workshops in the Hypogeum.
. . . Web site: wendebartleytempleproject.blogspot.com . . . [More >>]
Art
- Dr Louis Laganà lecturer in the University of Malta, on Art History, Cultural Identity, and Methodology Application in Art Education: spoke on Goddess worship in prehistory.
. . . Web site: jc.um.edu.mt/sok/lagana.htm . . . [More >>]
- Anna Grima is a visionary artist who has derived great inspiration from the Megalithic temples of Malta: exhibited her paintings in the Caraffa Stores.
. . . www.annagrima.com
- L. Caruana, international visionary artist based in Paris (with family roots in Malta): presented his artwork and talked about The Ancient Image Language of Myth, Art and Dreams.
. . . Web site: www.lcaruana.com . . . [More >>]
- Jeni Caruana, artist (one of the select group who worked for six months inside the Hypogeum of Hal Saflieni before it was open to the public, and known for her paintings of the megalithic temples of Malta: exhibited her paintings.
- Sina Farrugia, ceramicist based in Malta, who works with the spirituality of clay: exhibited her works.
. . . More >>
- Liz Ashton Hill, photographer: exhibited photographs that were used in Peter Marshall's book. (Liz's work was previously exhibited alongside that of Anna Grima and Sina Farrugia in the Sacred Footprints exhibition in Plymouth, in 2005.)
. . . [More >>]
Professional tour guides
- Peter Knight organiser of guided tours to sacred sites in the UK and throughout Europe: gave an illustrated talk on chambered tombs.
. . . Web site: www.stoneseeker.net . . . [More >>]
- Margaret Frendo tour guide in Malta. Margaret took Metageum delegates on daily visits to Malta's megalithic temples.
. . . [More >>]
- Clotilde Mifsud organiser of tours of the sacred sites of Malta: spoke on Goddess Spirituality in Prehistory, in Malta, in Today's World.
. . . Web site: www.goddesstourstomalta.com . . . [More >>]
Narrative
- Diana Bewley,, professional story teller, whose portfolio includes story-telling commissioned by the British Museum: narrated her own stories at the start and end of each day (from Saturday 3rd to Tuesday 6th).
. . . Web site: www.livingtouch.org.uk . . . [More >>]
- Kevan Manwaring (known as Tallyessin) a poet, story teller, teacher, bard who has told his tales on BBC Television and in many live events around England: narrated his own stories.
. . . Web site: www.tallyessin.com . . . [More >>]
Yoga Team
To re-energise and re-spiritualise the day, there was a midday yoga class on the third floor of the Caraffa Stores.
- Nataša Pantovic.
. . . More >>
- Zoya Lu.
. . . Web site: www.zoyalu.com . . . [More >>]
- Fairlie Gibson
Organising committee
- Peter B Lloyd, freelance writer and software consultant.
. . . Web site: www.peterblloyd.org
- Deborah Marshall-Warren, Emeritus Fellow of the Hypnotherapy Society (FHS) in the UK.
. . . Web site: www.marshall-warren.com . . . [More >>]
- Nataša Pantovic one of the main organisers of the annual Gaia Fest event in Malta, formerly the Mind Body Spirit festival.
. . . [More >>]
New Dolmen Hotel, Bugibba, Malta.
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