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Malta GGANTIJA Myth Temples August 3, 2008

Posted by dodo in : Beach Resorts, Sightseeing, Tour, Trails, Trip , trackback

WORLD HERITAGE LIST NUMBER 185 ARCHAEOLOGY, EVOLVED, GEOMANCY

The GGANTIJA temples are situated near Xaghra on Gozo, a Mediterranean islanda few miles northwest of its larger neighbour, Malta. Although the combined surface area of these two islands adds up to merely 125 square miles (320 square km), the importance of the megalithic architecture which has survived there is ‘out of all proportion to the islands‘ size’.’

Ggantija belongs to a phase of the temple- building period on Malta and Gozo which lasted from the early fourth millenium BC to about 2500 BC. Colonists from Sicily arrived on the islands about 5000 BC. These were simple peasant farmers, and it was the second set of Sicilian immigrants a thousand years later who started a megalithic tradition. Initially, they dug shafts and hollowed out subterranean rock-cut tombs. These became more complex, incorporating three-lobed forms, and gave rise to surface- level megalithic edifices, which in turn evolved into temples rather than funerary structures. The megalithic building on the Maltese islands is indigenous, for the communities there were self-sufficient, and there is evidence of only minimal trading with other areas. It produced one of the oldest traditions of megalithic architecture we know of. When Imhotep — the so-called ‘first architect’ — was revolutionizing Egyptian monumental building by introducing stone masonry (at Sakkara), the Maltese temple-

Building period was already well-established. There are even small terracotta and limestone models of buildings which have been uncovered at Maltese sites, showing the temples to have been planned — truly architecture. There is even one of these models that depicts an arrangement of rectilinear structures which seems never to have been built, for no site like it has yet been uncovered on the islands!

Travel GuidebookAlthough the megalithic temples are ruinous now, we have a pretty good idea what they looked like in their prime, because some sites included subterranea — rock-cut tombs that mimicked the surface temples. The best example of this kind of feature is the hypogeum at Hal Saflieni. This had 20 chambers crammed with the skeletal remains of some 7,000 people. The main chamber has pseudo-columns and lintels cut into the rock and was decorated with red paintings of abstract designs and oxen.

Fragments of relief carving and painting survive in some of the surface temples, too. And at many sites figurines and statue fragments of women were found, notably of obese forms that are assumed to be female (though specific sexual characteristics are lacking in some cases): the religion of the Maltese temple builders seems to have related to the Mother Earth Goddess. The most dramatic of this type of image is at Tarxien, where the lower half of a skirted figure survives. Originally this must have stood 9 feet (2.7m) tall. Carved phalli also occur at this temple site.

The Neolithic communities of Malta and Gozo seem to have been sophisticated and peaceful. For reasons unknown, the temple building came to an end suddenly. David Trump comments that ‘the collapse seems to have been sudden and complete, as if the whole population of Malta and Gozo had abandoned everything and fled the islands. So far, none of the many possible explanations, singly or collectively, is clearly preferred by the recovered evidence.’2 A few hundred years later, around 2300 BC, newcomers arrived on the islands, but these people had metal — they were a Bronze Age society. They also produced megalithic structures, but of a type quite distinct from the earlier temple architecture. Sixteen dolmens from this period have so far been identified on the islands. The temples were re-used, but not for their original purposes: these new people cremated their dead and placed them in urns which were then deposited in the old temples. So although the old beliefs and rituals had been forgotten or were unknown, the Neolithic temples were obviously still considered as sacred places by the Bronze Age immigrants — an important point to remember, as we shall shortly see.

Ggantija is composed of two five-lobed temples, one larger than the other, contained within a common outer wall. The form of both temples is basically a passage with two ‘apses’ or transepts on either side and ending in a rounded chamber. The limestone for the outer wall is not local. Stones up to 18 feet (5.5m) high and weighing up to 50 tons can be found at the site. Excavations began there in 1827, and drawings of the place at that time show stones and details which have since disappeared. There are a number of carved reliefs on some of the stones (mainly in a transept of the southern temple) though most have become eroded. The designs show spirallic and serpentine forms. It was discovered from small fragments of evidence that the interior had been plastered and painted with a red pigment.

It has been suggested by a number of researchers that the ground plan shape of Maltese temples such as Ggantija may represent the corpulent form of the Great Goddess. Certainly the general idea of emphasized breasts and hips, symbolic of fertility and common to `Goddess‘ figurines found on the Maltese islands and elsewhere, back into even the remotest Palaeolithic times, can be read into the temple plans. (This idea of representing the particular deity being worshipped at a temple by the form of its ground plan is common in many ancient cultures around the world, and we encounter it elsewhere. Christian churches, for instance, added transepts to the rectangular basilica shape to give a ground plan representing the cross of Christ, and by implication the figure of Christ, the cosmic anthropomorph.)

Ggantija’s relationship with certain other sites on Gozo is interesting. For example, David Olmen, writing in The Ley Hunter,’ noted that the site falls into line with the church at Xewkija and the Ta’Cenc megalithic complex.

Ta’Cenc is on the south coast of Gozo, in an elevated position commanding extensive views of the island’s interior. Other alignments commence at the site too. The complex contains dolmens, a jumble of stones of various structures, possibly a ruined temple and examples of the mysterious ‘cart ruts’ which occur at points on the Maltese islands — curious grooves in rock surfaces as if the wheels of a vehicle had left their track. But how?

Visible from both Ta’Cenc and Ggantija is the great dome of the church at Xewkija which lies on the line between them. The dorhe is said to be the third largest in Christendom. The building is modern, but earlier churches have stood on the site, which up to the seventeenth century was occupied by a dolmen. This had a 15-foot-square (4.6m square) capstone and four uprights a little under 6 feet (1.8m) tall. Stones from it were used in the present church’s foundations, as was a 25 foot (7.6m) standing stone.

The alignment thus incorporates features from the Neolithic temple period and the Bronze Age period on Gozo. We have, however, already noted that the Bronze Age peoples were aware of the old temples as being sacred sites: they were adopted parts of their sacred landscape. And the line provides yet another illustration of Alfred Watkins’ claim that earlier pagan sites were sometimes Christianized, thus implying that a church on a ley does not necessarily deny the prehistoric origins of the line.

There is a fascinating relic of folk memory which effectively preserves this alignment in legend. It states that a ‘giant woman’ brought the stones for Ggantija (which means `giant’s bower’) from Ta’Cenc. She nursed a baby and ate beans while she carried the stones. These are all images of fertility, and this bean-eating giant woman figures in other legends on the island relating to other sites (also involved with alignments from Ta’Cenc). One describes how, when a drought came and the bean crop failed, the giantess crept away and disappeared beneath the hills of the island. All these clues seem to indicate that this is a folk memory of the Earth Mother Goddess so repeatedly depicted at the temple sites. In myth, in the deepest recesses of the psyche, she still walks the leys of Gozo.

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Malta GGANTIJA Myth Temples

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