In 2015, an unusual discovery was made in Malta’s capital city, Valletta: forgotten samurai armor from Japan. This find kicked off a period of painstaking restoration resulting in the armor’s shiny debut at the Expo 2025 in Osaka.
“We were restoring our Grand Master’s Palace when our Heritage Malta (a national agency for museums and cultural heritage) colleagues uncovered this huge box,” Josephine Farrugia, deputy commissioner general of the Malta Pavilion, tells The Japan Times. “Inside, they found armor that was completely different from anything else we had.”
At that point, the ambassador of Malta to Japan, Andre Spiteri, stepped in, recognizing the find as Japanese samurai armor. “I had no idea that such armor was in Malta,” Spiteri says.
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