Excerpts from
Why do we call these big stone buildings "temples"? How do we know they were "sacred spaces"?
The materials found inside the temples make
clear to archaeologists that the temples were meant to be spiritual centers. The
figurines, sculptures and pottery are clearly for ritual -- not for everyday
use. The monumental effort of just building the structures shows a powerful
dedication just like the building and decorating of the churches in the villages
today. So much energy would never be spent on a common house.
What did the temples look like 5,000 years ago?
Based on some models and fragments which were discovered inside the temples, they were huge -- probably three times higher than what we see today. Rising from the rocky plateaus, they must have been very imposing. Traces of pigment and plaster suggest that the inside walls were smooth and painted red. They were highly decorated, as we can see from the stones that still exist. Carvings of animals and the universal spirals in different designs are strong elements.
The temples were dark and cool in contrast to the fierce sunlight of summer in Malta. At night, the glow of oil lamps and torches flickering inside the depths of the temples would have looked almost magical.
Did they have roofs?
All
of the surviving temples are now open to the sky, but we can be sure
that they were covered, at least in part, when they were in use. The
stone carvings and decorations have deteriorated quite noticeably in
just the last hundred years that they have been exposed. This tells us
that they must certainly have been protected to have survived so many
years of use. Scientists are not agreed, however, about how the roofs
were made. Some think that stone was used to span the open walls. Others
suggest brush and animal skins. Another possibility might be timber and
plaster. Probably a combination of all these techniques was used.
Why do some people think the temples were built for worshipping a goddess?
Some scientists think the temples may even be shaped in the image of a Neolithic goddess of fertility and abundance. In very old times many people observed that it was the female animals that gave birth and fed their young, so they identified their god as a female source of creation and nourishment. In the native American Indian and other primitive cultures, people who took all their needs from the earth had a concept of "Mother Nature." It’s possible that the temple people of Malta were the same, but we can’t know for sure exactly how this was conceptualized.
