The National Museum of Archaeology, where the temple treasures ended up

It’s a common mistake in Malta, in my view. People visit the megalithic temples, see huge stones out in the open and wonder where everything else went. Everything else is here, in a Knights’ auberge on Republic Street, and it costs €5. That’s why I’d put it on day one or two of the trip, never at the end.

A Knights’ auberge full of prehistory

The museum occupies the Auberge de Provence, built in 1571 for the knights of the langue of Provence and one of the auberges UNESCO lists among Valletta’s monuments. The collection runs from the Maltese Neolithic, 5900 to 2500 BC, to the early Phoenician period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC. Heritage Malta calls it your first step to understanding the land you tread on, and I’d agree.

The ground floor, and why it matters

The ground floor is given over to the Neolithic. There are tools and vessels from the first islanders, and animal and human figures that say a lot about how they lived. The headline pieces come from the great UNESCO-listed sites, the megalithic temples and the Ħal Saflieni Hypogeum, and they include the Sleeping Lady, the Venus of Malta and the colossal statue from the Tarxien complex.

For me the Sleeping Lady is the loveliest thing in all of Maltese prehistory. She was found in the Hypogeum, and Heritage Malta’s own Hypogeum page notes that she’s now on show here. If you’re going to the Ħal Saflieni Hypogeum, where photography isn’t allowed, seeing her here first gives you the image you won’t be able to take there.

Upstairs, from skulls to Phoenicians

The upper floor holds the collection of skulls from the Hypogeum, first excavated under Fr Emmanuel Magri and later by Sir Themistocles Zammit. The same floor covers the Bronze Age and the Phoenicians, with ritual vessels, funerary urns, amphorae, Phoenician glass and gold, and an impressively large terracotta sarcophagus.

My favourite piece upstairs isn’t the showiest. It’s the Cippus, which played a key role in deciphering the Phoenician alphabet, displayed on the second floor alongside a copy of the one in the Louvre. Also upstairs is the Gran Salon, a painted hall decorated in the early 1800s and now used for exhibitions and events. Heritage Malta’s 2026 calendar listed an Egyptian exhibition there from October to March.

Tickets, hours and the Hypogeum trick

Adults pay €5, 12 to 17-year-olds, over-60s and students €3.50, and children aged 6 to 11 €2.50; under-6s from age 1 go free. It’s part of the Multisite Pass. From March to 31 October 2026 you can visit from nine in the morning until seven in the evening, seven days a week, and from November to February 2027 it closes at 17:00 instead. Audio guides come in ten languages. Facilities include a shop, indoor and outdoor seating, lockers and baby-changing.

It’s also worth knowing that the museum runs temporary exhibitions drawn from its reserve collection, so what’s on the walls upstairs can change from one visit to the next. Behind the scenes it keeps a large archive from the early Museums Department and a collection of photographic glass negatives, which tells you how long Malta has been digging up and cataloguing its own past.

Now the trick most people miss. The Hypogeum only lets in 10 people at a time and needs booking in advance. If you missed out, Heritage Malta sells last-minute tickets at €50 for the following day. Until 12:00 they’re only sold at Fort St Elmo and the Gozo Museum of Archaeology; from 12:00, also here, at the Domvs Romana and at the Hypogeum itself, first come first served, with a limit of four each except for families. If you’ve been shut out, this is a good place to try your luck.

Fitting it in

It’s on Republic Street, near MUŻA in Valletta and on the way to St John’s. I’d give it a good hour early in the afternoon, then head to the megalithic temples of Malta the next day with the finds fresh in my head.

One more money-saver. Hold on to your Hypogeum ticket, because presenting it at the Tarxien temples gets you in there for half price, courtesy of Heritage Malta. With the colossal statue seen here the day before, Tarxien makes a lot more sense.