Classroom lesson 路 The megalithic temples馃嚥馃嚬 Malta

The megalithic temples

Stone buildings older than the Egyptian pyramids

Huge ancient limestone blocks at one of Malta's megalithic temples

Photo 路 Wikimedia Commons

What is it?

Malta has some of the oldest stone buildings on the whole planet. They are called the megalithic temples, and they were built more than 5,000 years ago - older than the pyramids in Egypt and older than Stonehenge in England. They are made from huge limestone blocks, some bigger than a car.

Tell me more

'Megalith' is just a fancy word for 'big stone'. The Maltese temples are made from enormous blocks that the builders cut out of the ground using stone tools. There were no metal saws back then. Some of the blocks weigh as much as 20 grown elephants stacked on top of each other.

Nobody knows for sure how the builders moved them. One clever idea is that they used 'rollers' - small round stones underneath the big blocks. By pushing on the big stone, it would roll over the small ones, a bit like the wheels under a heavy suitcase. Try moving a heavy book over a row of pencils and you'll see how it works.

There are several of these temples spread across Malta and the smaller island of Gozo - including 臓gantija, which means 'the giant's tower'. Local stories used to say that giants had built them, because surely no normal person could lift those stones. (No actual giants - sorry!)

Inside the temples, archaeologists have found tiny carved figures of people and animals, neat little stone bowls, and round 'altars' that may have been used in special ceremonies. We don't know exactly what those ceremonies were, because nothing was written down. The temples keep a lot of secrets.

In the classroom

Walk your class through this in 15 minutes.

Talk together

Discussion prompts

  1. 01If you had to move a giant stone with no truck and no crane, what would you try?
  2. 02Old stories say giants built the temples. Why do you think people invent stories to explain things they can't yet understand?
  3. 03What might it feel like to stand next to a building that is 5,000 years old?
Try this

Classroom activity

Make a 'roller experiment'. Put a heavy book on a smooth table. Try pushing it. Now line up six round pencils under it and try again. How much easier is it? Talk about how the same trick may have moved giant stones in Malta.