The Hypogeum
Conventional archaeologists and scholars are of the considered opinion that the Hypogeum, the incredible underground Temple at Hal-Salflieni, was simply an elaborate burial chamber. Others believe that the space was only used as such many years after its original purpose was lost or forgotten. Inspired by the “Sleeping Lady” statuettes found there, its amazing properties as a sound chamber and its orientation to the sun and moon, they consider it more likely to have been a place of communication with Spirit.
As an artist the latter notion is highly evocative. I was lucky enough to spend hours down there painting while it was closed to the public for refurbishments. The experience left a lasting impression. Perhaps their rituals, celebrating the cycles of life, death and rebirth have erased the usual feelings of grief and fear that we associate with death, as the atmosphere is one of safety and wholeness. Did people once come to communicate with echoes of the past or visions of the future? Did women retreat there during their menses (a sacred time in some societies), did couples create precious new life? Did they come to give birth, or even to peacefully pass on to the next world?
As an artist the latter notion is highly evocative. I was lucky enough to spend hours down there painting while it was closed to the public for refurbishments. The experience left a lasting impression. Perhaps their rituals, celebrating the cycles of life, death and rebirth have erased the usual feelings of grief and fear that we associate with death, as the atmosphere is one of safety and wholeness. Did people once come to communicate with echoes of the past or visions of the future? Did women retreat there during their menses (a sacred time in some societies), did couples create precious new life? Did they come to give birth, or even to peacefully pass on to the next world?
The 'Sleeping Lady' statuette rests on a beautifully carved bed and is obviously comfortably asleep. She has given rise to many legends and ideas of Dream Chambers and Oracles in the manner of Delphi, which came much later.
During my hours of meditational drawings in the Hypogeum and other Temples, I felt that I wanted to paint ordinary women in sleep, not Goddesses or Priestesses, just women as we really are. The thought of peaceful, sleeping women curled in the chambers communing with something much deeper than everyday life is what led to my “Mother Earth’ series. Originally painted from real women, I overlaid the images with red earth from the Pwales valley, where I live, and sand from Ramla L’Hamra (Red Sands) beach in Gozo, which I have always found magical.
I started with a series of 'Rock Nudes' feeling that they were like cave paintings, scratched onto the surface of the stone walls. I then began to use a wonderful mixture of the red local earth, red sand from a beach in Gozo called 'Ramla L'Hamra' (the Red Sands) and acrylics, to paint women sleeping, deaming and becoming one with the very elements that we are all made of, live with, and will ultimately return to.
I wonder what their dreams unearthed?
During my hours of meditational drawings in the Hypogeum and other Temples, I felt that I wanted to paint ordinary women in sleep, not Goddesses or Priestesses, just women as we really are. The thought of peaceful, sleeping women curled in the chambers communing with something much deeper than everyday life is what led to my “Mother Earth’ series. Originally painted from real women, I overlaid the images with red earth from the Pwales valley, where I live, and sand from Ramla L’Hamra (Red Sands) beach in Gozo, which I have always found magical.
I started with a series of 'Rock Nudes' feeling that they were like cave paintings, scratched onto the surface of the stone walls. I then began to use a wonderful mixture of the red local earth, red sand from a beach in Gozo called 'Ramla L'Hamra' (the Red Sands) and acrylics, to paint women sleeping, deaming and becoming one with the very elements that we are all made of, live with, and will ultimately return to.
I wonder what their dreams unearthed?
I do believe that emotion is somehow printed into the fabric of time, and that sensitive people can feel this. Quantum physics is rapidly expanding the frontiers of conventional science and (re)discovering the amazing ways that energies interact. It is entirely possible that ancient people instinctively knew more about the intricacies of Life than we do; perhaps it is time that we listened to the echoes?
Copyright (C) Jeni Caruana 2013. All images on this site are the property of Jeni Caruana