The Maltese Islands are rich in Neolithic (新石器时代的) sites. Ggantija in Gozo, Tarxien, and the Hagar Qim/Mnajdra Complex here on Malta's south coast are perhaps the most well-known. These piles of stones are some of the earliest known manmade structures in the world. They are showing their age a bit but what would you expect for buildings that are five and a half thousand years old. My house was built in the year 2000 and is already in bad condition round the edges. These temples are older than the pyramids!

    In my opinion the temples are best seen after the visitors have left. Come with me for a late afternoon walk down the hill past Hagar Qim towards the Mnajdra Complex. There are chain link fences around the temples now but we can ignore those and try to image why Maltas earliest people went to the trouble of building these structures on this windy and poor hillside.

    Of course the temples would have looked rather different when they were constructed. They may have been decorated with pigments and possibly even roofed with animal skins or other materials. Who knows? We do know that they were changed and added to over a 1,000 - year period or so.

    Getting to Mnajdra and Hagar Qim is easiest if you have a car. Or if you don't mind a hike, you could get a bus to Qrendi(3 km away) or Zurrieq (5 km away) and walk from there. Warning: although the distances are not too great, walking several kilometers in the Maltese sun can be very hard and possibly dangerous. Take water and sunscreen.