Malta had one traffic light in 1990 when I had my first encounter with the megalithic temples. I was a well-traveled visitor with a lot of curiosity about the "glimpses of a mysterious past"  advertised in the tourist brochure. I expected to see stumpy foundations in an excavation trench.  Not so! In those days they didn't tell you that they were writing about the oldest free-standing buildings on earth. 

One of my first impressions was the surprise of walking inside walls still enclosing space. (Some of the temple walls soar more than 20 feet – six meters – overhead!) If I hadn't recognized the authenticity of the ancient stone, I would have thought this whole scenario was built to snag the tourists. My guide began to talk about fertility cults, and my eyes got even wider. We came upon the bottom half of a sculpture, the remains of what must once have been an eight-foot woman. My hands went to my face in astonishment that there could be such a thing in the world as this, and that the tourism industry of America didn't know anything about it. That situation has changed since then as the world discovers these fantastic constructions. UNESCO has inscribed them to the list of World Heritage Sites and The World Monuments Fund is trying to help protect them. 

I enter the temples now like a little child, humbled and awed by the achievements of the remarkable people who made them. The more I learn, the more I want to know. Were the ancient people of Malta the ancestors of later people we know a little better? How are the early cultures related? Did the use of large stones for monumental expression evolve from a common source?  

The Maltese Archipelago is a tiny cluster of islands in the middle of the Mediterranean, about 60 miles south of Sicily and 200 miles from North Africa. They have been a focal point for every major force that ever sailed this "Wine-Dark Sea." Occupation of the islands by Phoenicians, Romans, Goths, Arabs, Normans and the legendary Knights of St. John has resulted in a symphony of limestone architecture. That legacy has found its way into many of our homes, thanks to Malta's role as a film location.  Viewers see something of the islands in Gladiator, The Count of Monte Cristo, Columbus, Cutthroat Island, Midnight Express, Swept Away, The Odyssey, Eric the Viking, Popeye and many more. But Malta's temples have rarely been featured.  Hollywood has yet to catch onto their story. 

There are more than 23 places on Malta and Gozo where it is known that a megalithic temple complex once stood. The stones have fallen into various states of decay in the 4,500 years since they were abandoned. The first temple is believed to have been built nearly 6,000 years ago.   This span of more than a thousand years in Malta brings the emergence of architecture in its purest and most original form, humankind's earliest solar calendar (still functioning today), an iconography and structured religion centered on an earth goddess of abundance. 

Five of the sites still have much to offer the casual visitor: Mnajdra, Hagar-Qim, Tarxien, Kordin III, Ggantija on Gozo.  They present original pavements and walls, decorated stones and sculptures.  (Replicas are in place where most of the original important stones have been moved to the national museum for protection from the elements.) The shape is mainly sets of matched lobes off either side of a central corridor: all curves and roundness. Even the squared cuts of window-like openings are intentionally made just a little saggy, looking as if they were carved in cheese. The portals and chamber transitions are reminiscent of Stonehenge with their post-and-lintel systems. 

Stonehenge as we know it is much younger and was never meant to enclose space. In contrast, the Maltese temples have paved flooring; they were once roofed and fitted with doors. Corbelled walls and support systems indicate an ancient knowledge of advanced engineering and geometry.  Although at least some of the walls were once plastered and painted red, there is no use of mortar to keep the blocks together. How did they know how to do this?

Contrary to what some people may think, the megalithic monuments of the world were probably not beamed into place by aliens. They were labored into pre-planned existence by real living and bleeding people. In his series, "Secrets of the Stone Age" (Granada Television, UK), anthropologist Richard Rudgley astutely points out that ancient people built on the lessons learned by those who came before them. Knowledge did not materialize in a vacuum; the techniques evolved over hundreds of years as new ideas presented themselves. The temple-builders of the Maltese islands, however, do seem to have been early bloomers. We are just beginning to learn more about who they were.

At the time of this writing, researchers at Stanford University are about to undertake a comparison of human DNA material from Malta for inclusion in their study of the movement of people in the Neolithic (New Stone Age.)  Archaeologists and anthropologists agree that temple-period Malta is an important stage in the development of humankind.  New information will be made public when researchers and scientists come together at a conference in Malta in September 2003.

There is more excitement. Divers think they have located underwater structures off the coast of Malta. The "Atlantis" connection is being fueled by new studies of the seabed, old documents and the unarguable existence of an advanced civilization that predates dynastic Egypt and Minoan Crete. They left no written language that we know of. Yet in the "Temple Culture" we see evidence of international trade, craft specialization, a redistribution system. We see a peaceful society with no sign of weapons or warfare. They were healthy people, wearing highly stylized haircuts and garments of fine textiles. They slept on beds. They sat on couches. They believed they knew the secrets of reincarnation.

The monumental temples that grace the Maltese landscape, with their alignments to sun and moon and who-knows-what, are half the story. There are mirror temples of the dead  under the ground. The only excavated site open to the public is the Hal-Saflieni Hypogeum in Paola, Malta. (Editor’s note: See our earlier discussion of the Hypogeum in a previous issue of The Cultured Traveler by going here.)

If the people who compiled the list of ancient wonders had known of its existence, there would have been eight and the Hypogeum would have been one of them. But like the above-ground temples, its heyday was too far back in time to survive in living memory except as myth. It was rediscovered in 1902 when builders were erecting a modern house above the subterranean chambers.  With help from UNESCO over the last 10 years, railed walkways and a sophisticated controlled climate system have been installed to help protect the site while keeping it accessible to the public. Entry to the Hypogeum is now restricted and must be pre-booked. Disappointed visitors are turned away every day because the allotment is filled.  For the lucky ones who get in, the experience is a heady one. 

Five thousand years ago, three floors of strange chambers and passageways were carved out of solid rock with antler picks and flints. Portions were painted with spiral, beehive and tree-of-life designs in red ochre. With a little imagination one can almost see those ancient oil lamps flickering. The acoustical properties are indescribable -- something like being inside a stone body.  The modeling of the chambers echoes the architecture of the surface temple counterparts with carved posts and tray ceilings, rooms that are manipulated with perspective to fool the eye. The disarticulated bones of an estimated 7,000 people were once packed into side niches that are empty now. 

The Hypogeum likely had both burial and ritual purposes: a place to enter the womb of mother earth for communion with the dead, or maybe a prehistoric recycling plant for the soul. I feel extremely fortunate to have visited this site in its raw and natural state years ago. Those impressions will be with me forever. 

Malta is a little island. Many people are not even sure where it is, much less why they would want to go there. Yet, participants in structured guided programs like Elderhostel say that they need every day of a two-week program to cover it all. Without doubt, one of the highlights of their visit is the experience of the temples. They are universally amazed to make the personal discovery of these megalithic wonders. Because, for a traveler with an interest in ancient and exotic places, their magic is singular. There is nothing like them anywhere else on earth. 

Linda C. Eneix is Executive Director of The OTS Foundation for education, research and conservation related to temple-period Malta.