Face to face with our Ancestors…

When speaking of prehistoric times, most of us imagine our ancestors as aggressive, dirty individuals with unkempt hair, however nothing could be further from the truth. This is what Heritage Malta has proven through its participation in this year’s “Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Malta” by means of the exhibition “Jewellery through the times”.

The Megalithic Temples are slowly revealing secrets about a population who was clever, artistic, creative and talented with an eye for detail and a taste for the delicate and the exotic.

The exhibition was followed by a fashion show of replica prehistoric jewellery, which preceded the main highlight: changing the misconception related to the image of prehistoric people by means of a unique reconstruction.

The items featured in the fashion show were replicas of objects worn by individuals who lived on the Maltese islands some 5600 years ago. The artefacts exhibited were discovered at various Prehistoric Temple sites and form part of the permanent display at Heritage Malta’s National Museum of Archaeology in Valletta.

During the event held on Tuesday 7th May, Heritage Malta also launched a 3D virtual reconstruction of facial features based on one of the prehistoric skulls (over 5,000 years old) found at the Xagħra Stone Circle in Gozo. This was a unique opportunity for those present as it revealed, for the very first time, what one of our ancestors actually looked like.

The surprise on the faces of those present was evident as the face revealed was much closer to what one would expect from a woman of our day and age rather than that of a person who lived on the islands over 5,000 years ago … A real case of coming face to face with our Ancestors!