The prehistoric parish temples of Malta

Abstract

To understand the unique phenomenon of the Maltese Neolithic temples, there are two key questions: Why build communal monuments in stone? and, Why build temples? While hard formal proof is unlikely ever to be forthcoming selected ethnographic parallels can improve the quality of our interpretation. The temples were eventually completed in the ostentatious megalithic style, and themselves provide evidence of considerable demographic growth. As the largest megaliths are external, their display quality is evident, so it seems logical to conclude that, as in Neolithic Brittany, they had a key territorial role. The evolution of the temples indicates considerable demographic growth, and when we compare Maltese reactions to the pressures of demographic growth in the modem period, we again find a territorial response, the construction of monumental buildings in each parish. Internal evidence from the temples shows communal cultic activity, yet while major features are similar (animal sacrifice, hearths, 'altars', cult figures). no temple is a real copy of another: the pattern is of geographically scattered variations on the main temple forms and rituals. Nor is there evidence for centralization: each temple-community seems to have been free to develop its local character within the general theme of internal courts, megalithic external walls and concave facade facing the presumptive assembly area. Interpreting this evidence as a local territorialism made necessary by the demographic growth and expressed in monumental architecture, the 43 named temple sites are seen as neolithic forerunners to the monumental parish churches which dominate the scene in the extremely demographically crowded Malta of today.