Remains
of a fine trilithon were still standing and a huge
lintel lay on the temple floor. The two lintels over
the entrance to the temple were not there when the
temples were first excavated, but were put up later.
Mr Casha, together with colleague Charles Borg, conducted
seven guided tours between them on each of the two
days. "The people who visited ta' Hagrat yesterday
and on Saturday showed great interest in what they
saw and about what they were told about this earliest
prehistoric temple," Mr Casha stressed.
The temples were opened as an experiment by Heritage
Malta to create greater awareness about the country's
chequered history and to gauge the level of interest
among the public. Entrance to the temple was Lm1 for
adults and 50 cents for children under 16 and for pensioners.
"The entrance was not free because Heritage Malta
wants to be in a better position to assess the interest
among the Maltese and visitors to such sites. "The
cultural tours that used to be organised turned out
to be quite popular but then, most of those who went
on them showed little interest, if any, in the historic
sites that were visited. Most went on these tours as
an outing and not much else," Mr Casha explained.
In 1925 ta' Hagrat was excavated by Sir Temi Zammit,
Malta's first director of museum, and although the
yield was significant with some distinctive pottery,
the site was not deemed of much importance.
However, further work by David H. Trump in the early
1960s yielded a unique find - a small limestone model
of a temple. Dr Trump, who was curator of archaeology
at the then National Museum of Malta between 1958 and
1963 also managed to carbon date the temples.
The larger temple was placed in the Ggantija phase,
meaning that it was built sometime between 3600 and
3000 BC while the smaller temple was dated at 3300
and 3000 BC, which is in line with the Saflieni phase,
the same time as that of the Hypogeum underground temple.
In his book Malta: Prehistory and temples (Midsea
Books Ltd) with photographs by Daniel Cilia, Dr Trump
wrote: "The flight of steps between the two temples
could be part of (Sir Temi) Zammit's consolidation
of the site, though the similar ones at Tarxien are
certainly contemporary.
"Perhaps they provided access to a chamber in
the wall thickness at this upper level, perhaps merely
to facilitate roof maintenance, or could there have
been an oracle hole at ceiling level in the inner apse
of the larger temple?'
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