Any future for our past?

MaltaToday talks to Mario Tabone, the Chairman of the government’s cultural management arm Heritage Malta, about the threats to Malta's cultural heritage:

Ultimately I believe that the security at these sites will largely depend on the sensitivity of the people. The role of the media is of utmost importance, because they have an enormous impact on society, in making the public feel an owner of these sites.“In the last 20 months Heritage Malta made great efforts to sensitise the people about our national treasures. For the people to respect themselves they have to respect their roots. Our cultural icons – the prehistoric temples, our heritage sites and monuments, our customs – these make up our identity; there is something very wrong with those who do not respect them.

Fortunately, although these acts are very serious, they are not very regular. There must be a loud call from all the people against this vandalism – not just Heritage Malta and the media – because the best safeguard to our national heritage is the people themselves. The people must realise this heritage is theirs, that their treasures cannot be violated in this way. If there is anything that should unite us is our heritage, because it’s what makes us Maltese.”..

The list of stolen national cultural artefacts remains, sadly, full of missing items from our museums, from the moon rock donated by US President Richard Nixon in 1973 and stolen last year to the rare 18th century Giuseppe Grech painting of Grand Master de Rohan from the Fine Arts Museum. Is anyone following up these thefts at all? “The Cultural Heritage Superintendent is obliged by law to keep an inventory. From our side, we have our inventories, but we need an exhaustive inventory which is constantly updated and followed up.

The Superintendent should build a national inventory of cultural artefacts … I think he is studying the best way to go about it.“We are also involved in a European programme of digitalising our cultural heritage. This is really fascinating. It is an inventory in itself, but even more, because the data it contains include three-dimensional images and the methodology used for the production of the artefact. It’s a very exciting project because it increases accessibility to the world’s cultural heritage...

Read the full interview here