Saturday Mothers Missing Persons Demonstration | Galatasaray, Istanbul, Turkey | 22 August 2015

The protest group ‘Saturday Mothers’ gather every Saturday at 12:00pm for half an hour forming a silent sit-in demonstration in the Galatasaray district of Istanbul. They ask the fate of relatives who were victims of forced disappearances and political murders between the 1980’s and 1990’s. In memory they hold a portrait in one hand and a red carnation in the other, demanding justice for their relatives. The banner placed on the floor reads, “Failler belli kayıplar nerede?” which means, “Where are the missing?”

© Tony Blood – Demonstration. Istanbul, Turkey. 22 August 2015

© Tony Blood – Demonstration. Istanbul, Turkey. 22 August 2015

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Casa Rocca Piccola | Valletta, Malta | 2 October 2014

Casa Rocca Piccola is a 16th-century palace in Malta, and home of the noble de Piro family. It is situated in Valletta, the capital city of Malta. There are daily tours. The history of Casa Rocca Piccola goes back over 400 years to an era in which the Knights of St John, having successfully fought off the invading Turks in 1565, decided to build a prestigious city to rival other European capitals such as Paris and Venice. Palaces were designed for prestige and aesthetic beauty in most of Valletta’s streets, and bastion walls fortified the new sixteenth-century city. Casa Rocca Piccola was one of two houses built in Valletta by Admiral Don Pietro la Rocca. It is referenced in maps of the time as “la casa con giardino” meaning, the house with the garden, as normally houses in Valletta were not allowed gardens. Changes were made in the late 18th century to divide the house into two smaller houses. Further changes were made in 1918 and before the second world war an air raid shelters was added. The Casa Rocca Piccola Family Shelter is the second air-raid shelter to be dug in Malta. In 2000 a major restoration project saw the two houses that make up Casa Rocca Piccola reunited.

Information from: Web: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casa_Rocca_Piccola Further information: Web: http://www.casaroccapiccola.com/

© Tony Blood – Entrance Sign. Casa Rocca Piccola, Valletta, Malta, 2 October 2014

© Tony Blood – Staircase and Hallway. Casa Rocca Piccola, Valletta, Malta, 2 October 2014

© Tony Blood – Chinese Room. Casa Rocca Piccola, Valletta, Malta, 2 October 2014

© Tony Blood – The Sala Grande. Casa Rocca Piccola, Valletta, Malta, 2 October 2014

© Tony Blood – The Sala Grande. Casa Rocca Piccola, Valletta, Malta, 2 October 2014

© Tony Blood – The Archives. Casa Rocca Piccola, Valletta, Malta, 2 October 2014

© Tony Blood – Casa Rocca Piccola, Valletta, Malta, 2 October 2014

© Tony Blood – The Cabinet. Casa Rocca Piccola, Valletta, Malta, 2 October 2014

© Tony Blood – The Four-Poster Room. Casa Rocca Piccola, Valletta, Malta, 2 October 2014

© Tony Blood – The Green Room. Casa Rocca Piccola, Valletta, Malta, 2 October 2014

© Tony Blood – The Library. Casa Rocca Piccola, Valletta, Malta, 2 October 2014

© Tony Blood – The Porphyry Room. Casa Rocca Piccola, Valletta, Malta, 2 October 2014

© Tony Blood – The Blue Room. Casa Rocca Piccola, Valletta, Malta, 2 October 2014

© Tony Blood – The Summer Dining Room. Casa Rocca Piccola, Valletta, Malta, 2 October 2014

© Tony Blood – Small Bomb Shelter. Casa Rocca Piccola, Valletta, Malta, 2 October 2014

© Tony Blood – Family Bomb Shelter. Casa Rocca Piccola, Valletta, Malta, 2 October 2014

Salt Pans | Bugibba, Malta | 2 October 2014

BUGIBBA SALT PANS Situated on the foreshore of the Bugibba area next to the pier, these salt pans have been known to be here for a very long time. Probably like other sites in the region, a fine layer of sand covered and preserved them in the state they are in, to the 21st Century. The site is a pride of bygone engineering skills, basing it’s unique function on the simple law of gravity. The water flow is directed to different pans, through rock-hewn gutters, and controlled by the use of sluice gates and stone shutters. In other parts, circular channels bring the water level to service other canals that otherwise would be excluded from the system. The workmanship is excellent, particularly when one compares the site to other salt pans around the island. Two large salt-water reservoirs linked the rest by a central canal system furnished the smaller pans with water. Previously there may have been as many as six such reservoirs, some of which have been buried under new development. From the reservoirs, the central channel runs to two different sluice gate systems that service a number of pans, six of them being a uniform square type. A complex circular system of water control connected three of the pans. This system making use of stone shutters and canals, would have served to bring up the water level to the desired level so as to service the other pans further along the system.

Information from: Rural Development for Malta 2007-2013 The European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development Government of Malta Europe Investing in Rural Areas

Bugibba Salt Pans, Malta, 2 October 2014

Bugibba Salt Pans, Malta, 2 October 2014

Bugibba Salt Pans, Malta, 2 October 2014

Bugibba Salt Pans, Malta, 2 October 2014

St. Mary’s Tower | Comino | 1 October 2014

The Santa Marija Tower on Comino formed part of the early system of towers which the Order set up to facilitate defence and communication between the Ċittadella in Gozo and Mdina. It later became a key location of the system of towers built along the coast. The decision to build this Tower was taken by Grand Master Alof de Wignacourt in 1618, and was financed by the Grand Master himself, by the sale of the brushwood on the island and from the profits made by the resettled farmers. The site chosen was some eighty metres above sea level.

The design of the Tower was square in plan with four corner turrets. The bulk of the Tower is twelve metres high and stands on a plinth some eight metres high. A three metre wide strip was laid along the top surface of the plinth to enable the defenders to move easily to any endangered point. The walls of the Tower are about six metres thick and the four corner turrets are extended perpendicularly and crowned with a battlement top.

Information from:
Web: http://www.visitmalta.com/en/info/santamariatowercomino

© Tony Blood – St. Mary’s Tower, Comino, 1 October 2014

St. Mark’s Tower | Baħar iċ-Ċagħaq, Malta | 1 October 2014

The De Redin Towers are a series of small fortified watch towers that Grandmaster Martin de Redin of the Order of Saint John built on the Maltese islands between the years 1658 and 1659. There are 13 on Malta and 1 on Gozo. The towers are in sight of each other, and provided a communication link between Gozo and Grand Harbour, in addition to functioning as watchtowers against attack by Corsairs. They were also designed to withstand an attack if the need arose.

The design is based on the design of the last of the five original Lascaris towers, the Sciuta Tower at Wied iż-Żurrieq, that Grand Master Giovanni Paolo Lascaris, de Redin’s predecessor, had built in 1640. The locals refer to both the five Lascaris towers and the thirteen de Redin towers as “de Redin towers”.

Nine of the fourteen towers still exist today and most are in good condition and accessible to the public. Two towers were destroyed but the remains still survive, while another three were completely demolished and no remains survive.

De Redin towers are featured on the coats of arms of the Armed Forces of Malta, the Malta Stock Exchange and the local council of Pembroke.

Information from:
Web: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Redin_towers

This is one of Grand Master de Redin’s watch towers and is situated a few hundred metres from the Għallis Tower. Also known as St Mark’s Tower, this is probably the third of the thirteen towers built by Grand Master de Redin. The stone work cost 408 scudi and was paid for by the Grand Master. Its construction and history is similar to that for Ghallis Tower and it was built between March 1658 and July of the following year together with the other twelve towers. During the British period a small room was built in front of the Tower to serve as a guard room but only its foundations remain. On the first floor there is an inlet to an underground well.

Information from:
Web: http://www.visitmalta.com/en/info/qaletmarkutower

© Tony Blood – St. Mark’s Tower. Baħar iċ-Ċagħaq, Malta, 1 October 2014

St. Joseph Church | Qala, Gozo | 1 October 2014

The parish church of il-Qala was designed by Dun Ġużepp Diacono, the same architect-priest who designed the church of l-Għasri. It was constructed between 1882 and 1889, when he was serving as parish priest in il-Qala. The church is baroque in style, like many of Gozo’s churches (whether they were built in the seventeenth century or the twentieth!).

Il-Qala became a parish on 3rd February 1872, the first to be established after the creation of the Diocese of Gozo (separate from Malta). The seat of the parish church was the church of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady until St Joseph’s was completed in 1889. The church was consecrated in 1904 and became Archipresbyteral in 1965.

Information from:
Web: http://www.visitmalta.com/en/info/stjosephchurch

© Tony Blood – St. Joseph Church. Qala, Gozo, 1 October 2014

© Tony Blood – St. Joseph Church. Qala, Gozo, 1 October 2014

Ġgantija Temples | Xagħra, Gozo | 1 October 2014

Ġgantija

The awe-inspiring megalithic complex of Ġgantija was erected in three stages over a period of several hundred years (c.3600-3000 BC) by the community of farmers and herders inhabiting the small and isolated island of Gozo (Malta) at the centre of the Mediterranean.

Ġgantija consists of two temple units built side by side, enclosed within a single massive boundary wall, and sharing the same facade. Both temples have a single and central doorway, opening onto a common and spacious forecourt that is in turn raised on a high terrace. Rituals of life and fertility seem to have been practiced within these precincts, while the sophisticated architectural achievements reveal that something really exceptional was taking place in the Maltese Islands more than five thousand years ago.

This complex stayed in use for about one thousand years, down to the mid third millennium BC, when the Maltese Temple Culture disappeared abruptly and mysteriously. Eventually, the successive inhabitants of the Early Bronze Age (2500-1500 BC) adopted the site as a cremation cemetery.

Information from:
Heritage Malta

© Tony Blood – Ġgantija Temples, Xagħra, Gozo, 1 October 2014

© Tony Blood – Ġgantija Temples, Xagħra, Gozo, 1 October 2014