3) Hypogeum of Hal-Saflieni: Acoustic Wizardry
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You might not have heard of the Hypogeum of Hal-Saflieni before. I certainly hadn’t. It’s an amazing, and slightly terrifying, Maltese temple. It’s the only underground prehistoric temple ever found, it’s not as epic in size as Derinkuyu, but the Hypogeum of Hal-Saflieni has it’s own mysterious hi-tech abilities.
Built originally around 6,000 years ago, it was rediscovered in 1904 when some clumsy workers accidentally smashed through its ceiling. To be fair, no one knew it was there so it’s wrong of me to call them clumsy. I take that back.
Within the temple were found no less than 7,000 skeletons, piled up next to the door. Some of the skulls bared some odd deformities and in a wonderful Indiana Jones twist, all of these Maltese skulls have since disappeared without a trace. Mysterious, huh?
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No one knows who built the Hypogeum of Hal-Saflieni or who died in it or why, but they’ve found some pretty advanced acoustic-tech wizardry. If you stand in the right spot and speak aloud, your voice will reverberate throughout the entire complex. Interestingly, it only works for voices in the 95 to 120 Hz, i.e. fellas. Lasses were obviously not invited to the party. Ancient sexism.
If you chant at 110 HZ it is possible to turn the entire place into a magnificently spooky, trance-inducing chamber that stimulates areas of the brain involved in mood, empathy and social behavior.
One study found that:
…at 110 Hz the patterns of activity over the prefrontal cortex abruptly shifted, resulting in a relative deactivation of the language center and a temporary shifting from left to right-sided dominance related to emotional processing and creativity. This shifting did not occur at 90 Hz or 130 Hz.
Weird. And amazing.
