OK, following on from yesterday's failure to visit temples, Sarah and I decided to book a private tour with a minibus. A half day's tour would take in Tarxien temples, the Halam Dar caves, and the temples at Mnejdra and Hagar Qim. It meant an early start, but on the plus side, it also meant that we would tick off a lot off temples in one hit. So much so that I am going to break this post into two parts in order to do them justice.
Unfortunately I discovered that there is little chance of seeing the Hypogeum as they only allow 80 people (all booked up at least a month in advance) in per day and even then, depending on the humidity won't let a group in at all. This is done in order to save the delicate temple from the stress of hundreds of tourists visiting, the damage of which can clearly be seen in Egypt, where a lack of such a policy has bleached all the hieroglyphs, so the wonderful array of colours on the temple no longer exist.
We were outside nice and early and were greeted by a bohemian German ex-pat named Ralph. He had lived in Malta for over 20 years and clearly loved the place, judging by all the stories he was telling us as we made our way around the island. There was a general theme to every one of his stories though, and that was that either through neglect or stupidity, someone died.
They have festas on Malta, which are like small village festivals, and each village let's off fireworks to celebrate it. The result is there is an industry of firework manufacturers on the island, who seem to have little regard for health and safety judging by the number of stories Ralph was telling us about the buildings blowing up (and people dying).
I have to say I liked Ralph though. He made the journey thoroughly entertaining for me with his stories, as well as helping me with my pronunciation of the names of the temples. Maltese is a strange language that the English struggle with (I know you could argue that about every language that was non-English) having its roots in ancient Spanish slang with a mix of Phoenician thrown in for good measure.
The minibus picked up another three people before we started our tour. The first temple was Tarxien (pronounced Tar-shan (thanks Ralph!)) and this was actually in one of the suburbs of Valletta. Ralph being a local knew all the back streets so we got a lovely glimpse of the city where the buses just cannot go, due to the width of the streets.
The temple is pretty impressive, if you like your organised piles of rocks. To some I am sure they would baulk at it and think it looks like a derelict building site, but it is wonderful to see stones that have been around for almost 5,000 years, some of them with intricate carvings on them. The craftsmanship is simply amazing considering the limited amounts of tools they had at their disposal. The temple shape follows the design of the one in Ggantia apart from it being built in phases over hundreds of years. It was a temple as well as a cemetery. I had expanded my theory to think that the arrangement of the apses in the temples were in the shape of a buxom, wide hipped woman; a symbol of fertility in many cultures around the world. However Tarxien temple flies in the face of this theory with a six apse arrangement that resembles more of a Christmas tree.
This is a part of a carving of a figure at the temple, the guidebook seems to suggest that it is the figure of a man, but you don't often get men with cankles like that!! As you can clearly see from the photo, s/he is topless. In truth no one knows exactly what this temple was used for. Some speculate it was a religious building judging by all the animal bones found there whereas some scholars think it was a social gathering place for neolithic man to hang out.
The image above is the Tarxien money shot, a temple door that leads nowhere.....it is not very high, meaning our forbears were midgets or people were made to bow as they passed through it.
The image above is the entrance to the temple. You have to climb over the stone to get in, and the motif on the stone you climb over is thought to be a protective ward to banish evil spirits from entering - a Neolithic version of the door access card system we use at work only more reliable.
This is the altar at Tarxien. The hole was initially sealed up and when archaeologists opened it up they discovered animal remains, broken pottery and a stone knife, indicating it was an area of significance within the temple.
It may not look it but this is an intriguing photograph as those are some stairs leading up. Is it possible there was a second tier to this temple, or are they simply going nowhere. The stone at the top looks like a stone seat to me, but what do I know...
Scratches in the rock? Not a bit of it - this is ancient graffiti and those scratches are actually in the shape of boats. Alas I zoomed in too close so it is nigh on mpossible to tell that from this image, so you will have to take my word for it. They don't know when this graffiti was done, so it could date to a later period but it is one of the earliest depictions of life at sea in the world.
After seeing Tarxien temple we were met outside by Ralph who then ferried us via his temperamental ford minibus (which as far as I could tell, the handbrake didn't work) to Ghar Dalam (pronounced Jar Dar Lamb) an ancient cave complex, museum and garden. Basically this was a Maltese version of Cheddar Gorge, with a tiny botanical garden and museum bolted on to justify the entrance fee.
There was not much of interest to see to be fair, but I will share a couple of pictures so you can get a feel for the place. The thinking is that the cave housed early human settlements around the time of the ice age and it was used as a cattle pen for the inhabitants too, judging by the bones they found there. They found hippopotamus bones and skulls too, I am guessing Neolithic man was not farming these though...
That just about covers the first part of touring with Ralph, part 2 sees us take in two more temples in the south of the island......
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