Greetings Malta Friends! We just returned from our stay in Malta and we had a wonderful time. We ended a cruise in Valletta and extended our stay there for 3 days because our kids said it was their favorite destination. We did a lot of walking on our own and did visit Fort St. Elmo (because I love old buildings). One question we could not get answered relates to this picture:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Saint_Elmo#/media/File:Fort_St._Elmo_after_restoration_view.jpg
Can anyone tell me the purpose/function of the raised round buttons?
by Simusid
3 comments
I’m not at all certain but I wonder if they were some kind of storage, like the Granaries in Floriana (just outside of Valletta).
Taken from visitMalta:
Located just outside the bastions of the Capital, in Floriana, the Granaries are spread throughout the area. The granaries are pits that have been dug into the ground and covered by circular stone slabs and can be found around Valletta and Floriana. The granaries were used to store grain.
Included in this article, in the section on Silos, is a picture of the interior of a grain silo. This one is on Gozo, not Malta. The buttons you saw on the surface at St Elmo are the lids to silos used for storing grain in the event of a siege.
https://wirtghawdex.org/citadel-site/