Malta, Megalithic
Years: 4365BCE - 2638BCE
The Megalithic Temples of Malta are a series of prehistoric monuments in Malta of which seven are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Archaeologists believe that these megalithic complexes are the result of local innovations in a process of cultural evolution.
This leads to the building of several temples of the Ġgantija phase (3600-3000 BCE), culminating in the large Tarxien temple complex, which remains in use until 2500 BCE.
After this date, the temple building culture disappears.
Related Events
Filter results
Showing 10 events out of 16 total
The temples have distinctive architecture, typically a complex trefoil design, and are used from 4000 to 2500 BCE.
Animal bones and a knife found behind a removable altar stone suggest that temple rituals included animal sacrifice.
Tentative information suggests that the sacrifices were made to the goddess of fertility, whose statue is now in the National Museum of Archaeology in Valletta.
The culture apparently disappears from the Maltese Islands around 2500 BCE.
Archaeologists speculate that the temple builders fell victim to famine or disease, but this is not certain.
Another archaeological feature of the Maltese Islands often attributed to these ancient builders is equidistant uniform grooves dubbed "cart tracks" or "cart ruts" which can be found in several locations throughout the islands, with the most prominent being those found in Misraħ Għar il-Kbir, which is informally known as "Clapham Junction".
These may have been caused by wooden-wheeled carts eroding soft limestone.
A new wave of immigration to Malta from Sicily beginning in about 4100 BCE is the foundation of the Zebbug and Mgarr phases, and eventually the Ggantija phase, of Maltese temple builders.
Integration of the various societies and cultures in Europe, the Near East, and China increases during this age.
Old Europe is a term coined by archaeologist Marija Gimbutas to describe what she perceived as a relatively homogeneous and widespread pre-Indo-European Neolithic culture in Europe, particularly in Malta and the Balkans.
Archaeologists and ethnographers working within her framework believe that the evidence points to migrations of the peoples who spoke Indo-European languages at the beginning of the Bronze age (the Kurgan hypothesis).
For this reason, Gimbutas and her associates regard the terms Neolithic Europe, Old Europe, and Pre-Indo-European as synonymous.
Egyptian society along the Nile River begins in about 3600 BCE to grow and advance rapidly toward civilization; Amratian culture showing technical advances on the Badarian period.
A new and distinctive pottery, related to the pottery of the southern Levant, appears during this time, featuring figures of animals such as hippopotamuses.
The megalithic complex of Hagar Qim is located atop a hill on the southern edge of the island of Malta, on a ridge capped in soft globigerina limestone.
All exposed rock on the island was deposited during the Oligocene and Miocene periods.
Globigerina limestone is the second oldest rock on Malta, outcropping over approximately seventy percent of the area of the islands.
The builders used this stone throughout the temple architecture.
A trilithon entrance, outer bench, and orthostats characterize the temple’s façade.
It has a wide forecourt with a retaining wall and a passage runs through the middle of the building, following a modified Maltese megalithic design.
A separate entrance gives access to four independent enclosures that replace the northwesterly apse.
Features of temple architecture reveal a preoccupation with providing accommodation for animal sacrifices, burnt offerings and ritual oracles.
Recesses were used as depositories for sacrificial remains.
Excavation has uncovered numerous statuettes of deities and highly decorated pottery.
No burials exist in the temple or the area surrounding Hagar Qim, nor have any human bones been discovered in Maltese temples.
Bones of numerous sacrificial animals have been found.
It is theorized that the Hagar Qim complex was built in three stages, beginning with the 'Old Temple' northern apses, followed by the 'New Temple', and finally the completion of the entire structure.
The two temples at Ggantija on the Maltese island of Gozo are notable for their gigantic Neolithic structures.
They are the world's oldest freestanding structures, and the world's oldest religious structures, predating the Pyramids of Egypt and Stonehenge.
The temples, each constructed as a series of semicircular apses connected with a hall in the centers, are possibly the sites of an Earth Mother Goddess Fertility Cult, with numerous figurines and statues found on site that archaeologists believe are connected with that cult.
The temples are cloverleaf-shaped; built up with cyclopean facing stones and filled in with rubble.
Each is constructed as a series of semicircular apses connected with a hall in the center.
Archaeologists believe that masonry domes originally covered the apses.
The southern temple, the older and more extensive of the two, dates to approximately 3600 BCE.
Like other megalithic sites in Malta, the temple faces southeast.
It rises to a height of six meters.
At the entrance sits a large stone block with a recess that some archaeologists have hypothesized as a ritual ablution station for purification before entering the complex.
The five apses contain various altars; evidence of animal bones in the site suggests the site was used for animal sacrifice.
Carvings that decorate the site depict goats, sheep, and pigs of both sexes, possibly showing which animals were used by the sacrificial cult.
The structures are all the more impressive for having been constructed at a time when no metal tools were available to the natives of the Maltese islands, and when the wheel had not yet been introduced.
Small, spherical stones have been discovered; it is believed that these were used as ball bearings to transport the enormous stone blocks required for the temples' construction.
Mnajdra, a megalithic temple complex found on the southern coast of the Mediterranean island of Malta, is made of coralline limestone, which is much harder than the soft globigerina limestone of Hagar Qim, approximately five hundred meters away.
The main structural systems used in the temples are corbelling with smaller stones, and post-and-lintel construction using large slabs of limestone.
The cloverleaf plan of Mnajdra appears more regular than that of Hagar Qim, and seems reminiscent of the earlier complex at Ggantija.
The prehistoric structure consists of three conjoined but not connected temples: the upper, middle and lower.
The upper temple is the oldest structure in the Mnajdra complex and dates to the Ggantija phase (3600-3200 BCE).
It is a three-apsed building, the doorway of which is formed by a hole cut into a large piece of limestone set upright, a type of construction typical of other megalithic doorways in Malta.
This temple appears originally to have had a vaulted ceiling, but only the base of the ceiling now remain on top of the walls.
The pillar-stones were decorated with pitmarks drilled in horizontal rows on the inner surface.
The temple contains "furniture" such as stone benches and tables that set it apart from other European megalith constructions.
The larger Ta' Ha rat temple in Mgarr, Malta, dates from the Ggantija phase (3600–3200 BCE); the excavation of plentiful pottery deposits show that a village stood on the site and predates the temples themselves.
This early pottery is dated to the Mgarr phase (3800-3600 BCE).
Ta’ Hagrat is built out of lower coralline limestone, the oldest exposed rock in the Maltese Islands.
The complex contains two adjacent temples both of which are less formally planned than is usual in Maltese Neolithic temple design.
The smaller temple abuts the major one on the northern side.
The two parts are less regularly planned and smaller in size than many of the other Neolithic temples in Malta.
Unlike other megalithic temples in Malta, no decorated blocks were discovered; however, a number of artifacts were found.
Perhaps most intriguing is a scale model of a temple, sculpted in globigerina limestone.
The model is roofed and shows the typical structure of a Maltese temple including a trilithon façade, narrow-broad walling technique, and upper layers of horizontal corbelling.
The Ggantija phase temple is typically trefoil, with a concave façade opening onto a spacious semicircular forecourt.
The façade contains a monumental doorway in the center and a bench at its base.
Two steps lead up to the main entrance and a corridor flanked by upright megaliths of coralline limestone.
Three are placed on each side and support large hard-stone slabs.
The corridor beyond the entrance is paved with large stone blocks placed with great accuracy.
The corridor leads into a central torba court, radiating three semicircular chambers.
These were partially walled off at some time in the Saflieni phase; pottery shards were recovered from the internal packing of this wall.
The apses are constructed with roughly hewn stone walls and have a rock floor.
Corbelling visible on the walls of the apses suggest that the temple was roofed.
Maltese archaeology’s Saflieni phase constitutes a transitional phase between two major periods of development.
Its name derives from the site of the Hypogeum of Hal-Saflieni, a subterranean structure dating to the Saflieni phase in Maltese prehistory.
Thought to be originally a sanctuary, it became a necropolis in prehistoric times.
It is the only prehistoric underground temple in the world.
This period carried forward the same characteristics of the Ggantija pottery shapes, but it also introduces new biconical bowls.