Tarxien Temples
Four linked Neolithic temples known for relief-carved spirals, animal friezes and a colossal statue base.
The Tarxien complex was found by farmers in 1913 and excavated between 1915 and 1919 by Sir Themistocles Zammit, then director of the museum. Four megalithic structures stand on the site, raised between about 3600 and 2500 BC and linked by a shared forecourt and passages. The buildings are the most elaborately finished of the Maltese temples: their globigerina limestone slabs carry bas-relief spirals, a frieze of goats and a bull and sow, and stone bowls and altars survive in place.
One chamber holds the lower half of a colossal skirted statue, the largest prehistoric figure known from the islands, which would have stood about two and a half metres high. Many of the carved blocks and figurines on show are casts, the originals having been moved to the National Museum of Archaeology in Valletta for safekeeping. The site was reused as a cremation cemetery in the Bronze Age and forms part of the UNESCO World Heritage listing of the Megalithic Temples of Malta.
Highlights
- Bas-relief spirals and a frieze of goats and cattle
- Base of a colossal skirted stone figure
- Excavated by Themistocles Zammit from 1915
- Part of the UNESCO Megalithic Temples of Malta
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