THE MEGALITHIC TEMPLES OF MALTA, DATING FROM 5500 YEARS AGO, ARE THE OLDEST FREE STANDING STONE STRUCTURES OF THE WORLD. THIS WEB SITE CONTAINS MORE THAN 400 WEB PAGES OF INFORMATION ABOUT THE PREHISTORIC SITES ON THE ISLANDS OF MALTA AND GOZO.

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Ggantija Temples built 3,600-3,000 BCE	HUMAN REPRESENTATIONS

UNESCO has designated the main Megalithic Temples of Malta and the Hal Saflieni Hypogeum as WORLD HERITAGE SITES. The following is an extract from the Reports of the 4th (1980) and the 16th (1992) Sessions of the Committee: Seven megalithic temples are to be found on the islands of Malta and Gozo, each a result of an individual development. The Ggantija complex on the island of Gozo is remarkable for its superhuman achievements dating from [the Bronze Age] 3,600 BCE On the island of Malta, the temples of Hagar Qim, Mnajdra and Tarxien are unique architectural masterpieces, given the very limited resources of their builders. The Ta' Hagrat and Skorba complexes bear witness to the development of the temple tradition in Malta. The Hal Saflieni Hypogeum is an enormous subterranean structure excavated with cyclopean rigging to lift huge blocks of coralline limestone around the year 2500 bc (3,000 BCE). The Hypogeum, possibly conceived as a sanctuary, has been a necropolis since prehistoric times. The Megalithic Temples of the Maltese islands are on the prestigious World Heritage Sites list, but a few people know about these prehistoric free-standing stone structures in the world which are much older than the Pyramids of Egypt and Stonehenge. This Web site is being constructed to give information about these sites and the other temple sites in Malta that are not on the UNESCO list. This web site is based mostly on photographs and images of the temples. My intention is to give as much visual information as possible - using photographs, illustrations and virtual reality tours and movies. The photographs and illustrations are from a project I'm working on, about the Prehistory of Malta. This project will take the form of a book, CD-ROM or both. I am slowly building this web-site and will continue to add to its database with more material as time goes by. All the official known prehistoric sites will be eventually shown on this web-site. Yet only a selection of the many artefacts (like the 'Goddess' statuettes) from the archaeological finds, now kept at the National Museum of Archaeology in Valletta, is to be seen here. It will be impossible for me to show all of these. I will do my best to try to maintain and upgrade the site while continuing with my professional photographic work. Please watch the table of contents updates for 'chapters'. This is my first try at constructing a web-site, and any suggestions or corrections will be gladly accepted. The site has been designed to be straightforward, without any fancy presentation. It is intended to be a photographic, and not a graphic presentation. I would like to make the text available in other languages. If anybody is ready to translate the text, I am ready to built the same web site in whatever language. Please e-mail me. I wish to thank the Heritage Malta for allowing me to photograph the archaeological sites and the artefacts in their museums, and their help and encouragement in the past few years. 4.8.2004 Daniel Cilia All photographs and illustrations (except were indicated) are copyright of the author and have been DIGITALLY WATERMARKED!!! For any questions, suggestions or corrections please contact dancilia@tin.it. Thank you. PS If you like this web site, please forward the URL of this page to all the people you have on your e-mail address book. Lets make some publicity to the temples!!!

For viewing the interactive parts of this web site you need Apple's free QuickTime plug-in (needed for movies, sound, and virtual reality movies). To learn how to configure opening of files with QuickTime: See instructions. It is also recommended to download at least versions 4.0+, of Netscape Navigator, or Internet Explorer. Certain interactivity with the images will not show up properly with version 3.0 browsers. Just click on the links below to get the last versions.

OTHER LINKS RELATED TO THE TEMPLES OF MALTA SEARCH THIS SITE

This site is for educational purposes only.

	This Archaeology on the Net Web Ring site is owned by Daniel Cilia.
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