Temples with Ralph part II

We left the caves and headed to the south of the island to see Hagar Qim (pronounced had-jar eem) temple complex and Mnajdra (pronounced Men-eye-drar) temples. These are possibly the most delicate of all the temples on Malta as they have been placed under a protective canvas sheeting system (thanks to a grant from the EU) which protects them from the elements and which Ralph disparagingly kept referring to as UFOs.

Ralph's UFO over Hagar Qim - stay off this Cisk Ralph!

 

Ironically, it turns out that this protective sheeting is having the opposite effect than it was designed for, as the stones are no longer getting any water at all onto them and so they are drier than a Jack Dee stand up show, which is contributing to weathering the limestone.

The first temple we visited was Hagar Qim and the moment you walk into this site you realise that this is going to be a much better looked after site than the others. That is not to say the other places are run down at all, they are not, but this site had a crowd control barrier to control the flows of people coming through. Classy. The temple is the best preserved of all the sites in Malta, and it is also the one you can have most interaction with (i.e. climbing on it).

The main entrance to the temple

 

I don't know whether it is because the public hadn't been made aware of this, but the temples were practically empty again today making the need for thewir crowd control system completely redundant. There was our party and maybe one other party visiting the whole site, a maximum of about 30 people. For me this is my idea of heaven as you don't get annoying tourists invading your pictures of the site, but a part of me couldn't help feel sad that people were not taking advantage of the lovely historical sites they had on their doorstep. Indeed even the locals seemed more interested in the beach than the delights these temples offered.

The heat again was something to behold and mixed with the humidity, it means walking around these places is actually very energy sapping. Even armed with bottles of water we were still struggling. It was a great relief to be under the shade for a time, but you still don't escape the film of sweat! In some ways it is more unbearable than the Valley of the Kings in Egypt.

A niche outside the temple complex

 

This is a niche on the exterior of the main temple building. I am at a loss to explain the purpose of this and indeed the layout of this temple seems to be a bit different to the others I have seen so far on my travels as at this temple there is evidence of a stone vaulted ceiling being used. Amazing to think in an age where man was struggling to invent the wheel, they had mastered such feats of engineering.

The above image is a close up of an altar in Hagar Qim. It is the most intricate and complete altar I have seen in my temple visits thus far, and it was sort of reminiscent to me of the lower Egypt motifs in, erm, Egypt. The holes, s far as I can tell area not from some limestone equivalent of woodworm or from the weathering over 5,000 years, but they are decorative and intentional.

This is one of the few decorative stones at the site with the traditional swirling pattern that seems to be prevalent in the neolithic Maltese society of the time.

After this temple, Sarah and I steeled ourself for the walk to Mnajdra, which was only a half kilometre walk down a hill, but in the heat it felt like we were undertaking an expedition across the Sahara. The journey was really worth it though, as at the bottom was the best temple we have seen in our tour, Mnajdra.

Once again the site was under a protective tarpaulin, and their was another guard at the entrance to check your ticket (the Maltese take officiousness to new levels, as in order to get into the site, we needed to have our ticket checked at the entrance to the museum, then have it checked again at the entrance to Hagar Qim, and finally have it checked again at Mnajdra. They must have full employment here!

Some of the portacabins that the guards sit themselves in are rather fascinating in their own right, as being a ticket inspector on these temples can be a lonely experience where you don't see a person from one day to the next, and so invariably *every* guard has his companion dog lounging out with him and keeping him company. I wonder if they are on the payroll too.

Ralph's UFO hovering over Mnajdra....

 

The Mnajdra temple complex is an interesting one as it appears that the southern temple is aligned so that on the equinoxes, the sun rise shines directly into the back of the temple on the altar, whereas at the solstices, the shafts of light coming into the temple was at its narrowest. Perhaps this is a sign of an early form of calendar.

The entrance to the south temple...no sunrise can get in these days with the protective dome

At the entrance to several of the temples, I have been noticing a two hole arrangement chiselled out of the stone, it looked to me like they might be a method of fixing a door to the temple to restrict access, and I was rather pleased with myself to find out this was correct.

A view from the inside looking out, note the holes in the trilithons which were used to tether a door to the stone

 

The whole place was built with harder limestone on the outside in order to protect the temple from weathering, whereas inside the temple they used a softer a limestone to enable them to create intricate carvings in the stone. Pretty clever geologists these neolithics!

 

Admittedly, a lot of their carving seemed to come in the form of punching hundreds of little holes into the stone, but that is me just being picky.

 

We were on a limited time, as Ralph was coming to pick us up and drop us back at the hotel, so we made our way slowly back up the hill to the car park. By then end of that walk we were both dripping with sweat, and in dire need of a nice cold shower. The journey back was uneventful, it was filled with Ralph sharing stories of the island with us. As we drove I took a few photos.

 

You might not be able to see this clearly in thumbnail mode, but the island in the distance is called Filfla, it is the smallest of the Maltese islands and now a nature reserve. During the war, it was used by the royal navy as target practice, and as a result there is a lot of unexplored shells over there, so there is a strict exclusion zone around the island. Ralph told us the story of a diver who thought it would be interesting to ignore this and go diving there.....I think you know how Ralph's story ends....