Thomas McGill’s 19th century tourist guide to Malta is fascinating for the way he describes Malta with a foreigner’s eyes. I’ve used him as a reference before and many anecdotes are verifiable using other sources. This article examines his claims about the blue eyes of people from the village of Żurrieq.

McGill explains that the Maltese “show their arabic origin; they are swarthy with fine black eyes” (sic)¹. He includes an exception to this rule, “with one solitary exception, Casal Zurrico, where they are fair with blue eyes¹.” There is no other documented source stating this which makes this claim interesting.

Żurrieq is one of the few Maltese villages which hasn’t (yet) succumbed to urban sprawl. Surrounded by fields and countryside, it a delight compared to the most of the rest of the island.

In the 19th century, it must have been even more remote. Given people’s lifestyles it would not be unusual for a large percentage of Żurrieq families to have lived there for generations. Could this be a genetic property that existed in a close-knit community?

The science behind blue eyes

Anyone who’s ever had a child will tell you that babies all have blue eyes. When born, human eyes are still forming². At some point the eye develops and produces melanin which is what gives eyes, skin and hair colour^{2 3}. The OCA2 gene controls this^{2 3} on chromosome 15⁴.

There is a genetic switch next to the OCA2 gene which switches off the ability to produce melanin in the iris of an eye^{2 3}. The effect is that people who have this switched off have blue eyes^{2 3}. In a literal sense, their eyes don’t get coloured in because of this genetic mutation.

Danish geneticists Jesper Troelsen⁵ and Hand Eiberg³ discovered that humans developed blue eyes between 6 000 and 10 000 years ago^{2 5}. This means there is a single common ancestor that all blue-eyed people share². They all have the same switch in the same spot in their DNA^{2 3}.

This explains blue eyes, but how did that come to Malta and what is the connection with Zurrieq?

Prehistoric Malta

About 7 000 years ago a Stone Age culture spread across Europe⁶. This culture buried their dead together with small rotund Venus figurines⁶. Burial sites as far apart as Spain and Austria have this figurine⁶.

As I explained in a previous article we can tell a lot about prehistoric cultures by what they left behind.

Analysis of the Spanish sites show these people were dark skinned but had blue eyes. Genetic analysis shows they’re related to other Venus figurine cultures across Europe⁶. In Malta we also found this figurine – known as the Fat Lady of Malta. Archaeologists found this in prehistoric temples, the most famous of which is Hagar Qim about a kilometre or so from Żurrieq.

I’ve written about Malta’s monumental prehistoric monuments.

Scientists have yet to run genetic tests on Maltese prehistoric remains, so the only connection is a cultural one. It’s tempting to suggest there is a connection here, and that this may be how the blue-eyed gene reached the island.

The problem with this hypothesis is that Maltese prehistorical cultures died out. Conventional wisdom states the islands were re-populated at a later stage.

There is a further linguistic connection to blue eyes. The root of the word Żurrieq links it to żerraq, meaning to “to colour [in] blue”. It’s related to the English word “azure” which also means blue. In Malta, the place name refers to the colour of the deep blue Mediterranean Sea. This is also inscribed on the town’s coat of arms.

Who knows if the people’s eye colour came before the name, or if it is all a happy coincidence.

References

1. A hand book, or guide, for strangers visiting Malta, p115; Thomas MacGill; 1839[↩][↩]
2. Blue-eyed humans have a single, common ancestor; University of Copenhagen; Science Daily; 2008-01-31[↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩]
3. Is everyone with blue eyes related?; Gary Heiting; All about vision; 2019-06[↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩]
4. Why did humans evolve blue eyes?; ABC Science; 2015-09-04[↩]
5. #42: Geneticists Uncover the Origin of Blue Eyes; Jocelyn Rice; Discover magazine; 2008-12-14[↩][↩]
6. Blue-Eyed Hunter-Gatherers Roamed Prehistoric Europe, Gene Map Reveals; Dan Vergano; National Geographic; 2014-01-26[↩][↩][↩][↩]

Remember: links were correct at time of publication.