Alla ricerca delle radici mediterranee : i templi megalitici di Malta

Abstract

There is a small archipelago 80 km away from the tip of Sicily, home to a group of prehistoric monuments. For centuries, Malta and Gozo have attracted visitors - prelates, nobles, ambassadors, engineers military and naval hydrographers, fossil hunters and naturalists, scientists and museum curators - from different corners of Europe, because their megalithic monuments have always given rise diverse interpretations. The registration to the list of World Heritage Sites in 1980 secured an international recognition with this exceptional concentration of monuments, hosted on this small limestone island, found in the middle of a turbulent Mediterranean channel, midway between Europe and Africa. The monuments are universally known. They vary in size, from those spectacular Ggantija, Hagar Qim, Mnajdra and Tarxien to smaller ones like those of Kordin, Mgan, Skorba and others. Most have the same plan, with spaces organized as fences - technically known as "apses". They are built around a central axis with soft or hard limestone monoliths. The only entrance is located at one end and consists of a trilithic door which opens into an imposing megalithic facade. The cases that deviate from this pattern are rare, but nonetheless important