TIMES oF MALTA | Monday, March 13, 2017 7

National

Was the Azure Window

really just 140 years old?
Sarah Carabott
If film-makers were to be believed, the
Azure Window had been towering majes-
tically over Dwejra for hundreds of years,
which several Maltese seem unwilling
to dismiss.
However, the natural arch, a backdrop for
the 1981 film Clash of the Titans and, more
recently, a Game of Thrones episode, might
not have come about until the second half
of the 19th century.
Photographer Daniel Cilia spoke to this
newspaper of several land and seascape
paintings, drawings and etching of Malta
during the Knights sojourn on the islands.
Most artists travelled to Dwejra and illus-
trated the then famous Fungus Rock
where fungus that grew only on the
rock had reportedly medicinal pow-
ers. These included Jean Pierre-
Laurent Houel (1776), Louis Ducros
(1778), Louis Mazzara (1827), the
Brockdorffs and the Busuttils.
But the photographer believes
that the most important clue that
Top: Dated 1879, this photo of the Azure sheds light on when nature carved
Window was taken by photographer Richard out the window lay in the diary of
Ellis. Right: An Edward Lear Dwejra painting Edward Lear, who went to Dwejra
1866. Photos provided by Daniel Cilia on Saturday, March 17, 1866.
In his entry he says: Having drawn it
[the Fungus Rock] I toiled up and up but
the coast scenery is not nearly as fine as
that of Malta.
A photographic album of surgeon Michael
Dundon, dated July 26, 1879, shows a couple
of photos of the Azure Window by photogra-
pher Richard Ellis (at most printed by him
since the stamp of the photographer is on the
back of the print).
Mr Cilia believes that huge waves, similar
to those which last Wednesday demolished
the landmark, had eaten away the central part
of the rock that jutted out of the cliff face in the
years between 1866 and 1879.
Lear, and the other artists, would have def-
initely been compelled to illustrate such a
beautiful geological feature as that of the
Azure Window once they were at Dwejra to
paint the Fungus Rock, he added.
When contacted, Stanley Farrugia Randon,
a medical doctor, author and a member of
various cultural and historical associations
including Din l-Art elwa, described the phe-
nomenon of the window as a natural one that
was preceded and would be followed by sim-
ilar ones.
The sea was the best sculptor, he noted,
adding that nature was just doing its job. We
lost a beautiful sight but we would be getting
other beautiful ones in the future, he said.

Immortalised in Video still: George Vassallo

upcoming novel
Sarah Carabott

Burdened with the feeling that it

would not survive for long, Irish
author Nicola Kearns wanted to
immortalise Dwejras Azure Win-
dow in her upcoming novel.
Called The Azure Window, the
book, which will soon go to print, is
a follow-up to another one, also
based in Malta, she had written to
capture the Maltese resilience dur-
ing the war after realising it rarely
featured in novels.
She had told this newspaper in
2015 that a lot of research and help
from several groups in Malta,
including the Mtarfa Military Hos-
pital Historical Group and the Malta
World War II Living History Group,
had gone into the publication of
Under a Maltese Sky.
Since then, Ms Kearns has been
twice to Malta and, on one occasion,
while visiting Ta Pinu, she decided
to stop by the Azure Window.
I had such a feeling of love for it
that I wanted to call my novel after
it. I somehow sensed a sadness
while I was there that it was not to
survive for long. I felt I wanted to
capture it, she told this newspaper
after learning of its collapse.
In her novel, the landmark is
mentioned several times, with a
particular event happening on site
and being brought up poignantly
throughout the book.
Spanning over 60 years from an
island torn apart in World War II to
what is now a tourists paradise the
story intertwined three separate
love stories from three generations
of women who, like the Azure Win-
dow, were beautiful, fragile and
enigmatic, Ms Kearns said.
The book cover was painted by
Nicola Kearnss father, Nicholas
Kearns.
In the book, primarily set in
Malta in present times, Jessy
McGuill is on a search for her
grandfather, William Cortis, a
former Maltese pilot who fought
here during World War II.
She becomes drawn into the
past and the life of not just her
mother, Maria McGuill, whom
she never knew, but also the true
story of her grandmother Anas
endurance as she struggles to
survive amidst severe loss and
heartache during the war.
Jessy, like her grandmother
before her, also finds love with a
Maltese man, until her grandfa-
ther arrives on the island, with a
young man in tow.
This will be the first novel she
will be publishing in Malta fol-
lowing the successful sale of her
first novel here.
Divers glimpse watery grave
Philip Leone-Ganado
Encouraged by the mild weather, divers returned to
the site of the former Azure Window yesterday, bring-
ing back the first glimpses of the landmarks watery
resting place.
Dwejra has been one of Gozos most popular
dive sites for years and yesterday offered the first
chance for divers to explore the newly altered
underwater landscape since the collapse of the
iconic rock arch on Wednesday.
George Vassallo, a professional diver from San
Lawrenz, told Times of Malta that while most of the
pillars underwater base appeared to be mostly
intact, huge chunks of the main structure littered
the sea-floor from a depth of 10 metres all the way
down to about 50 metres.
He said the pillar appeared to have collapsed first
because of deterioration to its inner side, with a closer
inspection indicating it had tilted outwards, causing
the roof to crash into the sea amid raging winds.
Most of the existing dive site is still intact, he
said. The most important parts of the site didnt
seem to have been damaged. But the remains of
the arch have blocked one of the passageways close
to the window; you have to come up nearly to the
surface to get through now.
Mr Vassallo rubbished any notion of retrieving
the remains for display, one of the proposals
mooted by the government.
Suggesting the deep cracks in the pillars meant
only fragments would be retrieved, he described
the idea as a grave sin and said the pillars should
now serve as a new dive site.
I had tears in my eyes, he said of returning to
the site. This is where I grew up, so of course its
painful. But you cant stop nature taking its
course. Trying to do anything now would be a
waste of time and money.
The numerous diving expeditions yesterday
came in spite of the government declaring the
area off limits a day after the collapse, with a
temporary ban on diving intended to protect the
rock fragments until they can be studied.
The Environment Ministry did not respond to
questions on whether the ban remained in place
and whether any enforcement officers had been
posted on site but divers who spoke to this newspa-
per said there had been nothing to indicate a ban.
Last December, a few months before the win-
dows collapse, the ministry had put in place a ban
on visiting walking across the arch, with hefty
fines of 1,500 for trespassers. Visitors, however,
routinely ignored the ban, with many seen on top
of the arch until days before the collapse.