Beneath the surface: a journey Into Malta's mysterious underground

I have recently returned from a holiday in Malta. Amongst the places I visited one in particular stood out as being truly fascinating. In this blog I will set out a brief history of catacombs in general before telling you why if you're ever in Malta you must visit theirs.

Across the world, beneath bustling cities and quiet countrysides, lie hidden realms carved into stone. These are the catacombs—ancient underground networks used for burial, worship, refuge, and remembrance. They are places where archaeology meets mythology, where silence speaks, and where history feels unexpectedly alive.

The earliest catacombs date back thousands of years. The word is derived from the Greek kata (down) and kymbe (hollow). The concept is simple: carve chambers into the earth so the dead can rest safely when space above ground is limited or when communities needed to hide their practices.

Ancient Romans built elaborate underground necropolises to honor family lines and preserve social status. The early Christians used them not only as cemeteries, but also as secret meeting spaces during periods of persecution. Later civilisations used catacombs as emergency shelters, hiding places during wars, and even makeshift marketplaces.

Within these subterranean corridors, archaeological layers build like chapters of a book, each skeletal niche, carved symbol, and crumbling fresco revealing clues about everyday life, spiritual beliefs, and the shifting cultures that created them.

Catacombs are fascinating because they are both intimate and vast: intimate because they hold personal stories of individuals long gone, and vast because they expand into endless darkness, reminding us of how much of human history sits just beneath our feet.

Among the Mediterranean islands, Malta is often celebrated for its sun-soaked coastlines and ancient temples like Ħaġar Qim or Mnajdra. But beneath its limestone landscape lies an equally extraordinary treasure, the Maltese catacombs, some of the most significant early-Christian underground sites in Europe.

Malta’s soft limestone is easy to carve, making it ideal for early burial complexes. Between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD, Maltese communities created sprawling underground cemeteries that reflect the island’s transition from pagan and Roman traditions to early Christianity.

These catacombs are not gloomy tunnels, but carefully engineered spaces with wide chambers designed for family burials, Agape tables—stone dining surfaces used for ritual funerary meals, iconography that blends Roman, Phoenician, and Christian influences, and communal halls suggesting these were also gathering spaces.

The catacombs my wife and I visited were St. Paul’s Catacombs in Rabat. Spread across an enormous area with over 30 separate underground structures, it represents one of the largest early-Christian catacomb systems outside Rome. There's a small museum before you head to the catacombs themselves (see photo below). Having found the entrance to the first catacomb, we carefully walked down the narrow stairs before descending into the relatively long corridors of interlocking graves, before we explored the circular halls with their carved benches, passing by the intricate loculi (rectangular tomb niches), and the sarcophagi hewn directly into the bedrock. You may be interested to learn that the word 'sarcophagus' (the singular of sarcophagi) is derived from Greek and literally means 'flesh eating'.

St. Paul’s stands as a reminder that Malta was once a vibrant crossroads of cultures where faiths and traditions mixed freely.

Malta’s catacombs, in particular, stand as hidden monuments to the island’s extraordinary heritage—where village streets sit atop vast underground labyrinths filled with echoes of early civilisation.

If you ever find yourself on the islands, step below the surface. The sun may be bright above, but some of Malta’s most compelling stories are told in the cool, quiet dark

Catacombs invite us to step into the past in the most literal sense. Whether wandering the vast Roman tunnels or descending into Malta’s intimate, art-adorned burial chambers, you are experiencing history at its most raw and unfiltered.

For the photographers amongst you, the photos taken inside the catacombs were all taken using long exposure. Using a flash in a dark, cramped space is generally unadvisable because it produces harsh, unflattering light, causes strong, unnatural shadows, can result in overexposed subjects and pitch-black backgrounds. I was reasonably happy with the results.

I hope you've found this blog interesting and informative. Please don't forget to drop a comment and to tell your friends and family about my blog. You can follow me on Instagram and Threads at @smart_phone_photographer_53 and on my Facebook page 'Words and Frames'.

© Mike Young 2025.