The Neolithic Temples of Malta and their Alignment with Sirius

The suggestion that ancient civilizations aligned their structures to certain cosmological events is well established in archaeology and is one of the focuses of the field of archaeoastronomy.

For example, many have argued that passage tombs in Ireland are oriented towards the winter solstice, and monuments such as Stonehenge are often the center of investigations aimed at uncovering cosmological significance provides numerous examples from around the globe.

In Malta, various cosmological events have been considered in conjunction with archaeological features. The first to identify a possible astronomical interest was Zammit during his excavation of the Tarxien temples, during which he noted a series of holes in the arrangement of the Southern Cross.

Later, Cutajar (1937) reported possible alignments from Tarxien to other sites and the rising sun. In more recent times, authors such as Lomsdalen and Cox have attempted to catalogue the full range of possible alignments in Maltese temples, in an attempt to demonstrate an island-wide interest in these natural phenomena.

The temples of Mnajdra have become especially important for archaeoastronomers, as strikingly accurate alignments with the equinoxes, as well as cross jamb solstice alignments (and other minor alignments) have led to them being labelled ancient calendars or observatories.

The sun is often the prime target for speculation, but other cosmological events have also been identified, such as moon rising and sidereal transit.

Despite the evidence proposed, the significance of the alignments is hard to demonstrate on observations alone.

For example, with the assumption that the entrance to the temple of Mnajdra South is approximately 6° wide in relation to a viewer standing in the center of the temple, shows a chance that a specific cosmological event on the horizon would be visible.

This value suggests the likelihood of a randomly occurring alignment is significantly low. However, when the statistics are extended to the 23 temples considered in this study, the value changes.

If all the temples had a random orientation, the possibility of any one of them being aligned to the event is mathematical important.

The Maltese Temple Period was a cultural movement that occurred in the Maltese Islands between 3700 BC and 2400 BC, characterized by large-scale temple building and communal underground burial.

Extant buildings include approximately thirty megalithic temples and two burial sites orhypogea. Statues, decorations, and symbolism demonstrate the Temple Period possessed a well-established yet constantly evolving belief system.

Temple plans generally followed the same design (Fig. 1). Each temple was composed of a central corridor with a series of apses or lobes either side, forming a sequence of roughly oval rooms (Trump 1966).

At the far end of the central corridor an apse or small niche was present, sometimes on a raised surface.

The entrance of the temples and the sections joining the apses were supported by trillionths, composed of two upright stone slabs and a horizontal stone beam.

The trillionth slabs had holes that may have been used to support a stone, wooden or reed door, although none have been recovered.

Science Direct.com / ABC Flash Point News 2024.