Story
The story of Ġgantija
Local folklore says a giantess named Sansuna built these temples, living on nothing but fava beans and honey, with a child hanging from her shoulder. That is why the place is called Ġgantija, "place of giants." The truth is just as remarkable.
These temples are more than 5,500 years old, older than the pyramids of Egypt, and the earliest of the Megalithic Temples of Malta. Standing at the edge of the Xagħra plateau and facing southeast, the complex holds two temples side by side and the start of a third that was never finished. The southern one, from around 3600 BC, is the larger and older, with five large apses and walls rising to 6 m. Traces of plaster still cling between the blocks.
At the entrance, a large stone with a recess may have been used for ritual washing before worship. The site was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1980.
This story is compiled from Wikipedia and other open sources; dates and numbers are checked against the source. The text is shared under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence. Source ↗
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