The Neolithic Age’s “Counter Stonehenge” Lies in Malta’s Magnificent Hypogeum

By Patrick Totty

The awe that many people feel for megalithic (Greek for “large stone”) structures isn’t at their great size or complexity. Rather it’s at the ability of people working with stone tools to fashion such sophisticated works.

Stonehenge is the great example of a Neolithic megalith, erected by people who somehow dragged great stones relatively great distances and hoisted them with enough exactitude to create an uncannily accurate calendar-keeping instrument.

Stonehenge, because of its accessible location in a populous, developed country, continues to be the world’s best-known megalithic structure. But there is another structure, less known, that is as awesome in its own way as Stonehenge.

It is called the Hypogeum (“burial chamber”) and is located on the Mediterranean island of Malta. Where Stonehenge was a matter of filling empty space with stone slabs dragged onsite, the Hypogeum, a great man-made cave, is the opposite. Here, 5,600 years ago, patient Stone Age laborers gouged emptiness from solid living rock, fashioning a complex three-level interior that contains astounding textural detail.

Covering a total of about 5,400 square feet, with its levels extending down about 35 feet, the Hypogeum was discovered by accident in 1902 near the center of the town of Paola.. Somebody building a house atop it dug through to the great underground space and began, lamentably, using it as a dumping place for construction debris. Scientists and government officials quickly stopped the destruction and  begin admitting the public to the structure.

For about a 1,000-year span, the Hypogeum served as a necropolis, a city of the dead that eventually housed the remains of about 7,000 people. It was one of many megalithic structures strewn across Malta, built by a complex Neolithic culture that mysteriously disappeared around 2500 BC.

In 1980, UNESCO added the Hypogeum to its list of World Heritage Sites.