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The Mnajdra temple on the main island of Malta is the best preserved temple, and is close to a
second megalithic temple, the Hagar Qim near the sea side. As with all the other
temples of Malta, the most important question is
whether this ‘temple’ really was a place of worship or whether it had some other
purpose.
The architecture is the typical style used for all temples on
Malta: a shape that resembles a
clover-leaf with walls made of separate walls of megalithic slabs at a distance
of a few metres. The space in between the two walls is filled with sand and
stone rubble. This created a solid wall which still stands after many
millennia.
The length to width ratio is roughly 40 to 30 meters and some of the
megalithic slabs are more than 6 metres long. It is unclear
whether it was ever roofed. The walls seem unsuited to bearing heavy megalithic
roof plates.
This temple was excavated in 1840. The period of
building the temple is placed in the timeframe 3300 – 2500 BC but the dating has never been
determined scientifically.
There are many
questions. Why is this temple here, on an island, far away from populated areas?
Or was it not an island at all in those days and was it mainland? Who quarried
and transported the enormous slabs?
More about Mnajdra in the Dutch book "Verborgen geheimen van de mensheid",
and
more in ref. Mayrhofer and Zammit.
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