Star fort at the tip of the Sciberras Peninsula in Valletta, constructed in the 16th century by the Knights of Malta. Site of the most ferocious fighting during the Great Siege of 1565, where Hospitaller knights held off an Ottoman invasion force.
About This Site
Fort St. Elmo is a star-shaped fortification at the tip of the Sciberras Peninsula in Valletta, Malta, originally constructed in 1552 by the Knights of Malta, also known as the Knights Hospitaller. The fort became the focal point of the Great Siege of 1565, when a massive Ottoman invasion force attempted to take Malta from the Hospitaller order. The garrison held out for over a month under relentless bombardment, buying time for the rest of the island's defences to be reinforced. The fort's construction demonstrates the advanced military engineering the Hospitallers brought with them from their previous strongholds in Jerusalem, Rhodes, and across the Mediterranean. Today the fort houses the National War Museum and serves as a monument to the Hospitaller military tradition that shaped Malta's history for nearly three centuries.
Connection to Oak Island
In Season 12, Rick Lagina, Alex Lagina, Peter Fornetti, Doug Crowell, Corjan Mol, and other team members visited Fort St. Elmo with archaeologist Matthew Balzan, a specialist in Hospitaller studies. Matthew explained that the knights arrived on Malta in 1530 and transformed the island into a fortress. Doug showed Matthew a pickaxe recovered six years earlier from below 145 feet in shaft RF1 on Oak Island. Matthew identified it as a baqqun, a standard quarrying tool used for centuries to cut through both hard and soft rock, confirming it matched the type of equipment the Hospitallers would have employed in their extensive underground construction projects.
When Alex asked about the role of clay in fortifications, Matthew described deffun, a waterproofing compound made from broken pottery and limestone that the knights used to seal underground structures. The identification of the pickaxe as a Hospitaller quarrying tool and the parallel use of clay waterproofing techniques connected the engineering practices of the Knights of Malta to construction methods observed in the Money Pit.
Fieldwork Notes
Visited during Season 12 by Rick Lagina, Alex Lagina, Peter Fornetti, Doug Crowell, Corjan Mol, and team members. Archaeologist Matthew Balzan identified the RF1 pickaxe as a baqqun (quarrying tool) and described deffun waterproofing compound matching clay usage in the Money Pit.
