14/04/2021
The Doors 🚪 and the Door Knockers (or Love-Handles as I like to call them) of Malta 🇲🇹
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They are one of my favourite decorations of Malta and their details will leave no one indifferent. Having evolved from door k***s, the knockers give an elegant look to the door, usually making it look more stately.
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The shapes and trends of the door knockers in Malta have evolved and changed over time. There is a huge variety of them - I have seen dolphins as the most common shape but there can be many as you can see in the video sequences.
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Their purpose, at least in the old days before door bells 🔔 was to call for the owners of the house, announcing your arrival. You’d either get a reply from inside or perhaps a neighbour would come to the window to tell you there’s no one inside.
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Another quite interesting function they had was to “advertise the cleaning skills” of the maid of the house. Usually they would be the last piece of the house to be cleaned and so only the best maids really worried about polishing, cleaning them immaculately. Some say the maids of the village townhouses used to vie with each other about this!
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