Megalithic Temples on Malta

Hypogeum Is Fully BookedI spent the day looking for Megalithic Temples. These are temples that are 3,00 – 5000 years old. Not much is known about them. There are various Megalithic Temples scattered all over the Mediterranean area.

The country of Malta has several temples. The Island of Gozo has one temple, called Ġgantija . This is the one I visited because it is supposed to be the oldest and the largest of the temples on the islands of Malta. According to Wikipedia “Ġgantija is a Neolithic, megalithic temple complex on the Mediterranean island of Gozo. The Ġgantija temples are the earliest of a series of megalithic temples in Malta. The Ġgantija temples are older than the pyramids of Egypt. Their makers erected the two Ġgantija temples during the Neolithic Age (c. 3600-2500 BC), which makes these temples more than 5500 years old and the world’s second oldest manmade religious structures, after Göbekli Tepe. Together with other similar structures, these have been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Megalithic Temples of Malta.”

While I spent most of my day finding and looking at the temples, my first actual excursion of the day was to Hypogeum, which is the only known prehistoric underground temple in the world. It was thought to have been a sanctuary when it was originally created around 3,000 BC. It is believed too have later became a necropolis. The remains of over 7,000 people have been found there.

At first, I had something of a challenge finding it. I got off the bus at the correct location and the driver told me which way to go. “Go straight ahead and turn right on the third street.”, he told me. That’s what I did but I seemed to be a little lost when I followed his directions. Pretty soon I saw the sign on the side of the street. After I started following the signs I found the Hypogeum with no trouble. When I got there I looked at the admission prices. They wanted fifty dollars to get in to see the site. I thought that was a bit much. Too rich for my blood. But it turned out that it didn’t matter. I saw a sign on the counter that said that the site was fully booked until June 26, 2014. That was over a month from the day I visited. I guess I didn’t have to worry about spending fifty dollars to get in. I did run into some tourists who did have a booking. I asked one of them if they knew how many people got to go and see the site in a day. “Ten.” he told me. We then had a short discussion on exclusivity. He said he booked a tour for his girlfriend and himself several months previously. You know, the more I travel, the more I learn.