Summer Walks Through History draw to a close with successful session at Museum

By Neve Clinton

The last of the GSLA summer sports and leisure programme’s Walks Through History recently took place at the Gibraltar National Museum, with Senior Guide Phil Smith giving the nine to 12 year-olds a tour of all the artefacts on show.

This included the forensic reconstructions of Neanderthals Nana and Flint, whose skulls were found in Gibraltar, as well as a replica of the first ever found Neanderthal engraving that had been scratched into the floor of Gorham’s Cave.

They toured the original Moorish bath site that the museum is built around, designed to be a social hub for the Moors who lived in Gibraltar nearly 600 years ago, complete with its hot and cold rooms controlled by steam channels, cloak room, private room and tapered star-shaped cut-outs in the ceiling to let sunlight shine in.

Mr Smith also showed them the model of the Rock depicting what it looked like 160 years ago, it featured the Moorish Castle, the Lighthouse, Parson’s Lodge, King’s Bastion before it became the Leisure Centre and the Museum building sitting right behind it, as well as Grand Parade before it was a car park and the Laguna Estate area when it was an actual lagoon.

He also pointed out that South Barracks, now St Joseph’s School, would house 800 to 1000 soldiers, and when he arrived in Gibraltar in 1981 he lived there as a soldier, “that was my first house in Gibraltar”.

Stella Celeste Fernandez, age 11, said she learnt “a lot about the Neanderthals in Gibraltar and how the first Neanderthal skull was found in Gibraltar, it was quite interesting”, she also learnt about the stolen Egyptian Mummy that floated ashore from a ship following a storm, “and that’s the only connection that it has”.

Her favourite part of the museum was the 160 year-old model of the Rock, “because it shows the difference between nowadays Gibraltar and before”, adding she would recommend the Museum to tourists and “people who are very interested in history”.

Stella Murgu, age 12, shared that she had learnt about local history and Neanderthals, and found it interesting that there are archaeologists specifically focused on shipwrecks, nautical archaeologists, such as Mr Smith.

Her favourite part of the tour was also the model of Gibraltar because “I like models, they’re cool when they’re big”, she also found the Nana and Flint figures “cool” and added that she would definitely come back to the Museum next year.