How it began
The temples were built by a prehistoric culture on the islands of Malta and Gozo, in present-day Malta, during the 4th and 3rd millennia BCE. The oldest are the two temples of Ġgantija on Gozo; the southern and larger one dates to around 3600 BCE. The Ġgantija building phase ran to about 3000 BCE and the tradition ended with the Tarxien complex, in use until about 2500 BCE. UNESCO lists six sites: Ġgantija, Ħaġar Qim, Mnajdra, Skorba, Ta' Ħaġrat and Tarxien. The names of the builders are unknown.
How it works
Each temple is entered from an oval forecourt through a concave facade. Facade and inner walls are upright stone slabs, called orthostats, topped by horizontal blocks. Outer walls use larger blocks set alternately face out and edge out, which ties the wall into the building, and the gap between outer and inner walls is packed with stones and earth. Surviving courses show the rooms had corbelled roofs. Inside, semicircular chambers called apses open off a central axis. Builders used hard coralline limestone outside and softer globigerina limestone inside.
What changed first
UNESCO states that the form and layout of the buildings, and the objects found in them, suggest they were an important ritual focus of a highly organized society. Decorated panels with drilled holes and with relief carvings of spirals, trees, plants and animals show a high level of craft. The Ta' Ħaġrat and Skorba complexes show how the building tradition was handed down.
What lasted
UNESCO ranks the temples among the earliest free-standing stone buildings in the world and cites the technical skill their construction required. They had been claimed as the oldest free-standing structures on Earth until the discovery of Göbekli Tepe in Turkey, which is older. The Ġgantija temples are more than 5,500 years old and predate the pyramids of Egypt.
Where it stands today
The six sites form a UNESCO World Heritage property that began with Ġgantija and was later extended to five more temples. They were excavated in the 19th and 20th centuries, which left them exposed to erosion. Lightweight removable shelters now cover some of them as an interim measure while research on long-term preservation continues. They are protected under Malta's Cultural Heritage Act of 2002.
