Rough Stone Monuments and Their Builders — John Shaqi
Rough Stone Monuments and Their BuildersPeet, T. Eric (Thomas Eric)
History
Rough Stone Monuments and Their Builders
Peet, T. Eric (Thomas Eric)
Megalithic monuments; Prehistoric peoples
In the still more famous temple of Hagiar Kim we have a complicated
building, in which the original plan has been much altered and enlarged.
The main portion doubtless consisted originally of a curved facade and a
pair of elliptical areas, the inner of which has been fitted with a
second entrance to the north-west and completely remodelled at its
south-west end. Four elliptical chambers, one of which is at a much
higher level than the rest of the building, have been added. Here, too,
as at Mnaidra, we find niches containing trilithon tables. In the first
elliptical area, in which the apsidal ends are divided from the central
space by means of walls of vertical slabs, a remarkable group of objects
was found. In front of a well-cut vertical block stood what must be an
altar, cut in one piece of stone. It is square in section except for the
top, which is circular. On the four vertical edges are pilasters in
relief, and in the front between these is cut in relief what looks like
a plant growing out of a pot or box. To the left of the altar and the
vertical slab behind were an upright stone with two hanging spirals cut
on it in relief, and at its foot a horizontal slab. Both the altar and
the carved stone are covered with small pit-marks.
In the outside wall of the building, quite unconnected with the
interior, is a niche partly restored on old foundations, in which stands
a rough stone pillar 6-1/2 feet high. In front of this pillar is a
vertical slab nearly 3 feet high, narrowing towards the base, and
covered with pit-markings. This pillar can hardly be anything but a
baetyl, or sacred stone.
The temple called the Gigantia, on the island of Gozo, is no less
remarkable than the two which we have already described; in one place
its wall is preserved up to a height of over 20 feet. The plan is
similar to that of Mnaidra, though here the two halves seem to have been
built at one and the same time. Several of the blocks show a design of
spirals in relief, while on others there are the usual pit-markings.
Another bears a figure of a fish or serpent. At the foot of one of the
trilithons was found a baetyl 51 inches in height, now in the museum at
Valletta.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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