The megalithic temples of Malta are a group of prehistoric stone buildings on the Maltese islands, including Ggantija on Gozo, Hagar Qim and Mnajdra, Tarxien and Skorba on Malta. They were built by early farming communities, long before Stonehenge and the pyramids of Egypt, making them among the oldest free-standing stone buildings in the world. Most have rounded rooms arranged in a clover-leaf plan, built from huge blocks of local limestone and decorated with spirals and animal carvings. Statues of large figures found in them are often connected with ideas of fertility and worship. Why this temple-building society disappeared remains unclear, with theories including environmental stress, and several of the temples are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Before and after
- c. 4,000 BCEOrigins of Thinis
- from c. 4,000 BCE to 3,100 BCEUruk period
- c. 4,000 BCEEruption of Witori
- c. 3,600 BCEConstruction of Ġgantija
- from c. 3,600 BCE to 2,500 BCEOrigins of Megalithic Temples of Malta
- c. 3,580 BCEEruption of Taal
- c. 3,550 BCEEruption of Pinatubo
- from 36th century BCE to 18th century BCECaral–Supe civilization
- c. 3,501 BCEPeople first tame horses on the steppe
More in Civilizations & archaeology
- from about 12,000 years ago to 7th millennium BCEConstruction of Göbekli Tepe
- from 10th millennium BCE to 3rd millennium BCENeolithic revolution
- from 76th century BCE to 25th century BCEChalcolithic
- from 5th millennium BCE to 1st millennium BCEAncient Egypt
- from c. 3,300 BCE to 1,100 BCEMinoan civilization
- from 4th millennium BCE to 1st millenniumAncient history
The era
This moment belongs to the Human prehistory (300,000 years ago to 3,200 BCE), the human story before writing.