The Gardjola

Around the island of Malta, various sentry boxes were built, mostly by the Knights of Malta over the two hundred and fifty years when they ruled Malta from 1530 to 1798. They were built mainly on top of fortifications and bastions, to serve as watch-towers against the incoming enemy, in our case the Ottoman Empire, the Turks, against whom Malta fought the Great Siege in 1565. These sentry-boxes are still well-preserved and often restored and they still create a nice addition, especially to photographs. They are called a gardjola in Maltese.

Here are two gardjolas, one in the foreground and another across the main harbor.