La Sleeping Lady de Hal Safleni,Malta

—-La “Sleeping Lady” del Hipogeo maltés de Hal Safleni.Museo Arqueológio,Valletta,Malta.

-One of the most precious items that there is exhibited at the National Museum of Archaeology, in Valletta, is the famous Sleeping Lady. A small statuette which was discovered at the underground Hal Saflieni Hypogeum is full of details which make its even more interesting to look at. Believed to be completed around 5000 years ago, the statue is showing the corpulent figure of a female, reclining on a bed, and she seems to be in deep sleep. She is shown on a well constructed bed, with stumps acting as legs, and traverses indicating that during that time people had a good sense of construction. Her head is resting on a pillow whilst she is clutching the same pillow with the other hand. The dress she is wearing is decorated in various ways. There are the pleats on the lower hem and decorated designs are clearly seen on the skirt. She is not covering her breast. It has been suggested that she could have had some buttons on the back of her skirt. Discovered in an underground complex, it has been suggested that this could be a priestess in the act of interpreting dreams of the faithful. Whatever the reason behind such a statue, it is still an exceptional work of art of the Prehistory.-

The “Sleeping Lady” is a Neolithic sculpture that was found in the temple, Hal Saflieni in Malta. It was discovered in a deep pit in 1905.

“The Sleeping Lady has often been directly connected to death. It has been suggested that the woman is engaged in sleeping or dreaming rituals…The Sleeping Lady may thus have provided a material link between the worlds of the living and the dead.” Isabelle Vella Gregory, The Human Form in Neolithic Malta (2005)-”Another aspect of the goddess and her religion was perhaps healing….One suggestion for the meaning of the Sleeping Lady of Hal Saflieni is that she illustrates the rite of incubation, where a worshipper sleeps in a sanctuary in the hope of receiving a cure by divine intervention. But the same rite was also on occasion employed when the aim was information rather than healing, knowledge of the divine will come through the medium of dreams. Nor are these by any means the only possibilities for the interpretation of this enigmatic figure.”-

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El Hipogeo de Hal Saflieni es el único templo subterráneo prehistórico conocido; fue excavado hacia el 2500 a.C.. Se considera su primera función fue la de santuario y que ulteriormente, pero aún en tiempos prehistórico, se convirtió en una necrópolis. Está situado en extremo del municipio de Paola, en el sureste de la isla de Malta. Sus coordenadas son 35°52′12″N 14°30′23″E / 35.87, 14.50639. Fue declarado Patrimonio de la Humanidad por la Unesco en 1980.

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Cámara principal,Hal Safleni,Malta

El Hipogeo de Hal Saflieni fue descubierto por accidente, en 1902, durante las obras de construcción de unas cisternas. Las primeras excavaciones estuvieron dirigidas por el padre Manuel Magri, de la Compañía de Jesús. Tras la muerte de Magri en 1907, el arqueólogo Themistocles Zammit tomó el relevo. Entre 1992 y 1996 se realizaron trabajos de restauración.

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