Megalithic Temples of Malta
— — the stones older than the pyramids.
Not only on a wall.
“Seven prehistoric temple complexes set across the limestone of Malta and Gozo, raised between roughly 3600 and 2500 BCE. Ġgantija on Gozo predates Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids by a thousand years. Ħaġar Qim and Mnajdra hold the southern cliffs of Malta above the open sea, oriented to the equinox sun. The blocks are coralline and globigerina limestone, cut without metal. UNESCO inscribed the temples together in 1980. from the studio
Megalithic Temples of Malta, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The Megalithic Temples of Malta are a group of seven prehistoric monuments spread across the Maltese islands in the central Mediterranean. The complexes are Ġgantija on Gozo, with two adjacent temples; Ħaġar Qim and Mnajdra on Malta's southern coast; Tarxien, near the Grand Harbour; and Ta' Ħaġrat and Skorba in the village of Mġarr. UNESCO inscribed Ġgantija on the World Heritage List in 1980 and extended the inscription in 1992 to cover all seven sites under a single property.
The temple-builders worked two local limestones: coralline limestone, the harder upper bed, for outer walls; and the softer globigerina for inner chambers and carved reliefs. Blocks at Ġgantija weigh up to fifty tonnes and were moved without metal tools, possibly on stone roller-balls of which examples survive at the site. The largest carved figure recovered from Tarxien, a seated lower body once standing perhaps two and a half metres high, dates to roughly 3000 BCE and is held in the National Museum of Archaeology in Valletta.
Mnajdra sits on a low cliff above the southern sea, looking toward the islet of Filfla. The lower temple is built so that at sunrise on the spring and autumn equinoxes, the first light crosses the doorway and strikes the central altar; at the solstices, the light catches the edges of the two large megaliths flanking the entrance instead. The cliffs hold the dawn early and the temples sit in heated stone by mid-morning, the same colour they have held for five thousand years.