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The Ggantija temple is on Goze, the second island of Malta, and is the largest megalithic temple on Malta. As with the other temples on
Malta, the Hagar Qim, Mnajdra and
Tarxien, the question is whether this ‘temple’ really was a place of worship or
whether there was some other purpose. The fact that it is on such a small island
is strange in itself: such a huge construction suggests that there was a large
population, not only to help build it but also for its function as
temple.
The architecture is typical for all temples on
Malta: a shape that resembles a
clover-leaf with boundary walls made of megalithic slabs at a few metres
distance. This space between the two walls is filled with sand and stone rubble.
Together this makes a solid wall which remains standing after many
millennia.
The length to width ratio is roughly 40 to
30
metres and some of the megalithic slabs measure more than
6 metres in
length. It is
unclear whether it was ever roofed. The walls seem unsuited to the bearing of
heavy megalithic roof plates.
In 1827 this temple was excavated. Since the
excavation, done in a rather crude manner, the temple has suffered from the
effects of vandalism as wel as harsh weather.
The building of the
temple is placed in the timeframe 3600 – 3000
BC but one should put a big question mark next to this since the
foundation for the use of these dates has never been recorded
scientifically.
Why is the biggest temple built on this tiny
island? Or was it not an island at all in those days; perhaps it was part of the
mainland? And who quarried and transported the enormous
slabs?
It doesn’t make sense. Tiny island, no people around, a huge
fortress-like building, why? Who were the
ancient engineers?
More about Ggantija in the book "Verborgen geheimen van de mensheid", and more in
ref. Malta and Mayrhofer.
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