Temple builders of Malta

Radio Netherlands reports about a special exhibition at the Allard Pierson Museum of Archaeology in Amsterdam. It deals with the temples of Malta and the technologically advanced people of the time:

The small island of Malta was the cradle of a thriving European civilisation
that peaked as early as 5200 BC, and built temples more than a thousand years
before the Egyptians began erecting their pyramids.To mark Malta's entry to the
European Union, the Dutch ambassador to the island, Adrian Strickland, arranged
for a special exhibition to be held in the Netherlands.

"Nobody knows the name of the prehistoric inhabitants of Malta, which is why we simply call them ´Maltese´," says Geralda Jurriaens, conservator of the Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam. Even after seeing the exhibition most of the mystery surrounding the ancient people of Malta remains. Much can be learned from the tools, statues, temples and other archaeological remains that have been found, but according to museum director Robert Lunsingh Scheurleer, we will never be able to know what the ancient Maltese thought, or how they saw their world.

Some clues, however, are fairly obvious. For instance, the Maltese must have originated from Sicily. Sicily is the nearest island to Malta and pottery has been found there in a style that matches the earliest finds on Malta exactly. This also proves that, more than 7000 years ago, these prehistoric people managed to cross about 100 kilometres of sea.

Once settled on the island, the Maltese began building temples in around 4000 BC. These structures bore no resemblance whatever to the temples we know from Greek and Egyptian antiquity. The earliest examples are in fact artificially enlarged caves. The floors of these subterranean places of worship took the shape of a cloverleaf. Their entrance would be at the ´stilt´ of the leaf, and the different chambers of the temple would be arranged like the different segments of the leaf. The walls of the cave were rectangular and smoothed, and elaborate curved ceilings
and doorways were cut from the rock as well.

When the Maltese ran out of natural caves they started building their own above ground. Gargantuan cloverleaf-shaped buildings were erected using massive blocks of stone. The next step was to cover the whole construction with a thick layer of earth. The result was a little hill with a brand new `temple cave` inside.

The temples of Malta have recently been placed on the UNESCO world heritage list. "The statues of their gods provide us with some clues about the religion of the Maltese," says Robert Lunsingh Scheurleer. The highly stylised female figures with
enormous thighs undoubtedly played a role in a fertility cult. This is all the more likely because stylised phalluses have been found as well. Besides, for prehistoric man fertility was not only vital but also inexplicable - no better basis for a religion.Similarly, sickness and health also had a religious aspect to them, the proof being a small figure of a woman who is clearly very ill. Its horribly twisted spine was most probably an amulet used to ward off precisely such an affliction.

Technologically speaking, the Maltese were very advanced. Even though the wheel had not been invented yet, they managed to cover their temples with massive slabs of stone weighing up to 20 tonnes. To move them into place, egg-shaped boulders were used. These were placed under a block of stone that needed to be moved. The egg-shaped boulders were particularly useful for making turns, but there were also pillar-shaped ones used to negotiate straight lines.Given that the Bronze Age was still thousands of years in the future, the tools the Maltese cut from flint were extremely well made. In fact, the quality of their scrapers and axes was such that - even today - they are still sharp enough to give someone a nasty cut.

Self-sufficientMalta is a truly tiny island. Greater London would probably cover it completely. And yet, for thousands of years, the ancient Maltese survived on nothing more than their own agriculture and cattle. The remains of their cooking places show that their diet was quite varied. It included beans and grain, but also meat. Production must have been well-organised to sustain the people with such a rich variety of foodstuffs. Hunting and gathering, which was the normal way of life for most of prehistoric mankind at the time, was not an option for Malta.

It's a complete mystery why the ancient Maltese, the temple builders, suddenly
disappeared after 2500 BC. Was it an epidemic or famine that brought this
fascinating civilisation to an end?According to director Scheurleer, one thing
is certain: it wasn't violence. That would mean that villages and homesteads
would have been burnt down, and the telltale layer of charcoal that this would
leave in the ground is simply missing. This explains why the remains have been
well-preserved.

Island archeology of Malta

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