MALTA TEMPLES of REBIRTH from the AGE of Taurus: Ggantija Tarxien Hypogeum Hagar Qim  Mnajdra AGE of Aries Tas-Silg Ghar Dalam  Temple of Juno  Marija Gimutas & the orthodox archaeologists

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"Marija Gimbutas has not only prepared a fundamental glossary of pictorial keys to the mythology of the otherwise undocumented era of European prehistory, but has established the main themes of a religion in veneration of both the universe as a living body of Goddess-Mother Creatrix and all the living things within it as partaking in her divinity." --Joseph Campbell

Spiral motifs can be seen in all the temples. This represents the cycle of life, death and rebirth ever evolving in a continuation of life after death or  eternity. Similar spirals have bee n found at Knossos, Crete and Newgrange, Ireland

"Although it is considered improper in mainstream or orthodox archaeology to interpret the ideology of prehistoric societies, it became obvious to Marija that every aspect of Old European life expressed a sophisticated religious symbolism. She, therefore, devoted herself to an exhaustive study of Neolithic images and symbols to discover their social and mythological significance. To accomplish this it was necessary to widen the scope of descriptive archaeology to include linguistics, mythology, comparative religions and the study of historical records. She called this interdisciplinary approach archaeomythology."

Anthropologist Ashley Montagu has called her findings as important as the excavation of Troy, output to the Rosetta Stone and the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphics.

Anthropologist Ashley Montagu

"Science has proof without any certainty. Creationists have certainty without any proof." "The natural superiority of women is a biological fact, and a socially acknowledged reality." "The idea is to die young as late as possible."

One of the century's finest anthropologists, Ashley Montagu (1905 - 1999),

Birds in flight from pottery found at Ggantija Temples

3600  BC Ggantija Temples on GOZO
millennium before the pyRamids or stonehenge

Academics are generally comfortable with beginning humankind's history around 3000 BC, when the Sumerian civilization along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in today's Iraq invented an alphabet and made great strides as a civilization. Yet humankind left its mark for future generations many millennium before this in the form of assorted symbols. Despite this, academics (including most archeologists) persist in doubting or dismissing conclusions that might be drawn from the prolific symbols common in prehistory. This also solves the potential conflict with traditional religious history, which can be damaging to career advancement.

Marija Gimbutas (1921-1994) The scholar whose ground-breaking work translating the symbols of the Neolithic peoples of prehistory continues  to influence new generations and reshape the world view of itself.  She finished her career as a Professor of European Archaeology at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Curator of Old World Archaeology at what is now the Fowler Museum of Cultural History

Occasionally, an academic takes exception to the norm, and they  usually find their audience elsewhere than the ivory tower. This is the case with the temples of Malta. These monuments communicate in the universal languages of mathematical measurements of stars and seasons, and their words are expressed in the universal picture language of dreams. It does not require extensive education to see the Malta artifacts as representations of Mother Earth, symbolizing rebirth in the cycle of life and death.

Documenting that these patterns could be found repeatedly elsewhere in old Europe and that they informed the existence of the first agricultural or Neolithic cultures was the life work of archeologist Marija Gimbutas (1921 - 1994).

Gimbutas' radical interpretations came under attack, but she did not believe it possible to understand Neolithic cultures without recognizing the significance of their spirituality. Gimbutas' believed that one the great events in prehistory was the creation of villages made possible by efficiency of growing crops, thereby relieving humans from the uncertainty and immediacy of being hunter-gatherers.

Marija Gimbutas' work in explaining the symbols the symbols of Old Europe fell on deaf ears at the infamous 1985 Malta Archaeological Conference, but resonated with thousands of people around the world.

An Florida organization (otsf.org) devoted to the preservation Malta's neolithic temples tells of a forthcoming IMAX movie which sees the archeological evidence as the door to "a new chapter in the story of human development using the ancient monuments still standing on Malta as a threshold to prehistory. "

The Ggantija Temples are thought to be the oldest free-standing structures in the world. They are among the best-preserved temples on the Maltese Islands, and are certainly the most visited historical site on the Maltese Islands.

The complex comprises two Neolithic temples dating from the third millennium BCE (3600 to 3000 BCE), and are situated on the northern side of the hilly plateau known as ix-Xaghra in Gozo. The temples are made up of two separate units enclosed by a wall and sharing a common facade. Some Goddess tours refer to them as the the Mother & Daughter Temple.

The ruins had been noted since 1772 and the remains were 'cleared' (not excavated) in 1827 under Colonel Otto Bayer. A small amount of pottery, vases and statuettes are now displayed in the archaeology museums in Victoria and Valletta. 

Two years later, in 1829, a German artist by the name of Von Brockdorff painted a series of watercolors of the temple area. These pictures are very important as they show stones and reliefs that have since been destroyed.

All the Maltese temples were built without the benefit of metal tools, or the wheel. They are comprised of a mixture of coralline and globigerina limestone. The temples have a concave facade, with a platform outside for the worshippers. They laid large stones and then covered it with crushed earth (torba).

The south temple contains five apses and a middle passageway leading to the innermost trefoil section. It is the older of the two (dating as far back as 3600 BCE), as well as being the larger and better preserved. It contained elaborate furniture, and a variety of important features such as altars, relief carvings and libation holes. Some suggest the left apse in the second pair capstones might refer to a triple divinity or simply the intuitively understood fundamental known as the cycle of life; that is, life, death rebirth.

The outer wall of limestone encircles both temples, rising to a height of 6 meters. Some blocks weight 50 tons and are among the largest used anywhere on Malta for temple building. The plan of the southern temple incorporates five large apsidal chambers, with the inner one to the left being the most striking for its area and height - 85 square meters within 6 meter high walls. These walls are slightly inclined inwards as if intended to form a vaulted roof. The rough walling of the temple interior was originally smoothed by an application of clay and coated with a thin layer of lime plaster.

The north temple is considerably smaller, but with a more evolved plan in which the rear apse is replaced by a shallow niche.

Local legend says that a great giantess Sansuna, who lived on a diet of broad beans and water, constructed one of the temples in a single day carrying the megaliths on her head as she carried her baby under her arm.

After the disappearance of the temple people, the islands were repopulated by an entirely different race.

GETTING THERE: Termples Street, Xaghra,Gozo
Tel: 2155 3194 Fax: 2155 0107

Marija Gimutas: 1921 - 1994   Grandmother of a Movement

Gimbutas began the long, tedious process of deciphering the symbols engraved and painted on pre-lndo-European figurines, temples, stamps and other items. With her extensive knowledge of comparative religion, mythology, linguistics and folklore, she saw connections that most archeologists would not have been able to discern -- and made interpretations that no traditional academic would dare. The picture of Neolithic Europe Gimbutas developed was one of a civilization with organized cities, highly sophisticated art, a peaceful, egalitarian society, and religion that cantered around a female deity. These ideas were detailed in her last three books: Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe: 6.500-3.500 B.C. Myths and Cult Images (1974), The Language of the Goddess (1989), and The Civilization of the Goddess (1991).|

Gimbutas's radical interpretations came under attack from the orthodox academic community. While Gimbutas was a thorough scholar with encyclopedic knowledge, she also, Marler notes, "had the perception and sensitivity of an artist and poet." These qualities enabled her to see the complex symbolism of Neolithic Europe as an expression of belief in the sacredness of the natural world.

In the '80s, Gimbutas's work began to capture the imagination of many feminists. "Their response was a revelation to me, a big surprise," Gimbutas later told Marler, "because to the last moment I was so involved in my work that I didn't realize how strong the feminist movement (was)."

An Excerpt from the Interview:

Marler: Your work appeals to a very broad audience and even people who don't have an academic background often feel they have an intuitive sense of what you're saying.

Marija: The intuitive people are always the first to say that. Then eventually academia catches up, because these are the least intuitive. (laughter)

"I was born in Lithuania when it was still fifty percent pagan. I had quite a lot of direct connections to the Goddesses. They were around me in my childhood.   Interview with Marija Gimbutas at levity.com I had to learn from scratch because there was nobody in the whole United States who was really knowledgeable about what was in Russia or the Soviet Union in prehistoric times. So they invited me to write a book on eastern European prehistory and I spent about fifteen years doing this. So that was my background of learning. The Indo-European social structure is patriarchal, patrilineal and the psyche is warrior. Every God is also a warrior. The three main Indo-European Gods are the God of the Shining Sky, the God of the Underworld and the Thunder God. The female goddesses are just brides, wives or maidens without any power, without any creativity. They're just there, they're beauties, they're Venuses, like the dawn or sun maiden. So the system from what existed in the matristic culture before the Indo-Europeans in Europe is totally different. I call it matristic, not matriarchal, because matriarchal always arouses ideas of dominance and is compared with the patriarchy. But it was a balanced society, it was not that women were really so powerful that they usurped everything that was masculine. www.levity.com/mavericks/gimbut.htm

"We brought Marija into the center of our circle and she suddenly started speaking in this oracular voice, as though she were in a trance," Biaggi says. "No one can remember her exact words, but her message was one of unconditional love and timeless wisdom. When she came out of it, she seemed a little startled. Some of us were crying. The next day," Biaggi recalls, "I menstruated - and I had been menopausal for a year!"

The joy Gimbutas's female colleagues experienced in the Hypogeum was mitigated, however, by the lack of respect for Gimbutas's work on the part of the male archeologists at the conference. Artist and author Patricia Reis, who drew many of the images in The Language of the Goddess, recalls, "They kept referring to the Goddess figurines as 'fat ladies,' and they treated Marija like an eccentric aunt who was wonderful and mystical but not to be taken too seriously. It was so painful to watch."