http://www.dinlarthelwa.org/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=329

It was first to be a 3 storey building in the courtyard, and that’s were I got somewhat confused. Later, it was to be the glass roof – which sounds OK.

Note that up until now I have always discussed the excavation on St John’s Square, which I regard as risky. I have NEVER included the courtyard problem in my arguments.

[Daphne – The roofing in the courtyard was intended to provide shelter for tourists standing in vast queues waiting to go in – the queues you see on the steps in front of the Law Courts. The structure was to be a light one made of glass and something else – obviously not completely of glass as it wouldn’t have been much use against the sun. I’m rushing out now, but when I get back I will dig out the details and post them for you to read – either tonight or tomorrow morning, depending on the situation. Basically, the foundation wanted to put an end to those queues and get people to enter through Merchants Street instead.]

[Daphne – Oh my God, Moggy, honestly! With this comment, you have just illustrated how shocking the misinformation has been, and how terrible it is that people – even people with a science background like yourself – have actually made up their minds without knowing what in heaven’s name it was all about. Over and above that, you have been following the debate on this site for the last two weeks or more, and you still haven’t picked up the basics of the project.

If you are finding it hard to distinguish fact from fiction, this is because you didn’t do what a person with an academic background in science would have done: gone straight to the source instead of listening to gossip from third parties. You could have gone to the cathedral and examined the exhibition about the project. Or you could have read the articles and letters written by the curator, rather than those written by third parties who were not involved.]

[Daphne – May I barge in? Even working on the hypothesis that all the bodies taken to the Valletta yard from Birgu were still there, Moggy, how would roofing the yard with a temporary, removable structure of a lightweight frame and, glass and having people walk over the yard – which, incidentally, they do already – be any different to what occurs over the bodies buried beneath the cathedral floor? I am not trying to be a challenging nuisance here. I ask because I genuinely cannot understand. I detect that your reaction is an emotional one, but it is not consistent. If it is all right to walk over the dead in the cathedral, then it is all right to walk over the dead outside the cathedral. I honestly believe that when people expressed outrage at the thought of ‘walking over the bodies’ they genuinely failed to make the connection with what happens INSIDE the cathedral – walking over bodies, whole tour groups with guides and cameras, congregations sitting on top of the bodies on their little wooden chairs, and so on. It just didn’t click.]

In the 19th century a misguided exercise was carried out whereby many of the “elaborate gravestones” were moved around to make a “prettier pattern”. No record exists of precisely what they did, so now we don’t know for certain whether some particular tombstones tally with the individual buried beneath.

Some decades ago the skeleton beneath Mattia Preti”s tombstone was exhumed, and on examination it was decided that it corresponded with the age at death of the artist.
The skeleton was re-interred in a new coffin (made of wood from his home town of Taverna, as I recall).

[Daphne – By that, do you mean Miss Meilaq or James Tyrrell’s feathered friend?]

Please have a look at Joe Grima’s comment to:

http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20090226/local/valletta-underground-network-studies-may-lead-to-review-of-plans-for-st-georges-square

Joe Grima (6 hours, 57 minutes ago)
I remember that on the first day I entered the Prime Minister’s office at Castille Mintof f showed me a huge book of plans that outlined the entire underground tunnelling network beneath the Capital as created by the Knights of St John before Valletta was actually built. That huge book of plans must still be in existence and will provide the Minstrry with much needed information aboiut Valletta’s underground tunneling system.

[Daphne – Saw it. This country is unbelievable, with everyone trading on rumour and hearsay. These are matters of recorded fact, not of speculation.]

[Daphne – I think it’s a matter now of trying to find a less effective solution.]