As part of the fifth Festival Mediterranea, a field trip to the prehistoric sites of Ta’ Hagrat and Skorba in Mgarr was organised, led by renowned British archaeologist Dr David Trump. The rediscovery of these temples highlighted once again the importance of Malta’s heritage.
The beautiful weather and the participants’ enthusiasm made the organisers forget for a moment their disappointment of having to cancel the planned field trip to Ta’Cenc in Gozo, as its owners had refused to give their permission.
“The aim of this festival is to make local culture available to residents and foreigners,” explained Marion Zammit, one of the organisers. The festival is organised by volunteers united by the same desire to promote Maltese culture and raise awareness on the importance of preserving and protecting this heritage. From the prehistoric temples to the contemporary arts, the festival strives to show the evolution of Maltese culture throughout the seven millennia. This kind of field trip is a good way of drawing attention to the uniqueness of the Maltese prehistoric temples, which are the oldest free-standing stone structures in the world.
Dr Trump passion for Malta’s neolithic temples is catching and during his talk it was impossible not to be inspired by his enthusiasm. Actually there could not be a better guide than him as he excavated the site in the 1960s. Dr Trump was also Curator of Archaeology at the National Museum of Malta from 1958 to 1963.
He gave an exhaustive and fascinating talk about the history of the Ta’Hagrat and Skorba temples. Looking like a grandfather telling some good stories to his grandchildren, he enthusiastically revealed all the secrets of the temples in the detail. He re-created the progress of his digs and gave a full explanation of the tools he used to deduce that they were indeed temples ruins, date them, and discover what activities took place there, and so on.
Like many other temple finds on the islands, Ta’Hagrat’s discovery was a fluke. In 1916, an interesting mound of stones was noted in a field, but it was only in the early sixties that proper excavations were carried out by Dr Trump. The two Ta’ Hagrat temples were accurately dated: the larger belongs to the Ggantija phase (3600 – 3200 BC) and the smaller to the Saflieni phase (3300 – 3000 BC).
Dr Trump made the temples come alive again by describing all the rooms so vividly that one could picture what they would have been like. Two steps lead up to the main entrance of the older temple and a monumental doorway formed with two large blocks of stone, which, he explained needed to be replaced. An impressive corridor still paved with stone gives onto a regular central court with three semi-circular rooms around it. Dr Trump said there used to be a second floor, as could be seen from the remains of some steps similar to the ones found in the Tarxien ruins. Although the temples are large, the interior chambers were not enough big to take more than a few people at one time. It is likely that the general public did not have access to certain parts of the temples.
At the Skorba temples, located about a kilometre away from Ta’ Hagrat, Dr Trump gave a humorous account of all the difficulties they had to overcome to convince people of the importance of excavating this site and to carry it through. “When you first see the Skorba temple, you might be a bit disappointed because it is less well preserved than the other temples in Malta. However, it’s worth all the other temples put together,” he claimed. Each stone that is seemingly without interest at first glance reveals an authentic history. One of the most important discoveries of the Skorba excavations was the stratified deposits from all the prehistoric phases. This means that the site was occupied continuously from the first phase of human occupation of the island in 5000 BC up to the Early Bronze Age about 2500 years later. The archaeological investigation of the Skorba site helped to put Malta’s prehistoric phases on a firm basis, as it is the only place that has signs of dwellings used by Neolithic and Bronze Age peoples. The plentiful pottery remains as well as some human teeth found here, among other things, were dated older than the temple and suggest that these two temples were built on top of an earlier village. Little is known about the people who built these megalithic temples. “The first shards of potteries we found in Skorba were exactly the same that were found in Sicily,” explained Bridget, Dr Trump’s wife, “which suggests that the original inhabitants of the Maltese Islands probably crossed over from Sicily sometime before 5000 BC.”
Of course some questions still remain. For example, at the entrance of Ta’ Hagrat temples, where there is a very shallow depression, some archaeologists submitted the hypothesis that it could have been filled with water for purification purposes. Dr Trump admitted he did not agree with them. History is full of mysteries that archaeologists are always trying to solve and Dr Trump regrets the lack of interest in these temples and the archaeologist’s work. “There is a lamentable lack of involvement to promote archaeological sites in Malta. Many are not open, or rarely, to visitors yet we always complain about the lack of funds. It is a terrible lack of judgment.”
Yet, in 1992, Skorba temples were inscribed on the World Heritage List of the 1972 UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. This recognition helped to develop local awareness of the inestimable value of these national, indeed world, treasures. Let’s hope it will continue…
Both Mgarr sites are open to the public every Tuesday morning: Ta’ Hagrat from 9.30 to 11am and Skorba from 11.30am to 1pm. Tickets are available at Lm2 for adults, Lm1 for senior citizens and students under 18, and 50c for children under 6. More information about both sites can be found on Heritage Malta’s website, www.heritagemalta.org/heritagesites.html.