The planning and constructional principles in Maltese prehistoric architecture

Abstract

The Maltese Islands have known two periods of cultural splendour during their long history. One, the better known, occurred during the centuries when they were occupied by the Knights of St. John; the other, more remote, goes back to the prehistoric period when man first landed and inhabited Malta. It would seem that here prehistoric man found the isolation and time to create a civilization, to build a remarkable series of megalithic temples, to dig out elaborate hypogea in the living rock and to evolve an art and sculpture unequalled in Western Europe in their time and for many centuries later.