Stop 07 of 12
Mnajdra: the Upper Temples
A thousand years of building, and one bad night
Keep going
Stop one of Ħaġar Qim & Mnajdra plays straight away. The other 11 are one payment:
- Every stop from here to Wied iż-Żurrieq, narrated
- The map following you from stop to stop, hands free
- The whole tour saved to your phone — no signal, no roaming
Not sure yet? Start with The Visitor Centre & the Ridge.
The written guide below is open either way.
Guide to Mnajdra: the Upper Temples
Mnajdra’s three temples are of different ages: the small trefoil at the top from around 3600 BC, the middle temple on its platform perhaps a thousand years younger, the south temple between them. In April 2001 vandals toppled about sixty megaliths in a single night; they were surveyed and reset within the year, and the fence, wardens and shelter followed.
Three ages
The upper temple, three rounded chambers off one doorway, is the oldest and the simplest plan on the islands, probably what every temple looked like before ambition set in. The middle temple, built on a raised platform, is the youngest, from the last phase of the temple period. The site was altered and added to for roughly as long as the span from the Norman conquest of England to today.
A slab in the upper temple carries rows of drilled holes read by some as a tally or calendar of days or moons, by others as decoration. The holes are there; the arithmetic is ours.
April 2001
One night, people came onto the site with tools and toppled about sixty megaliths in the south and middle temples, breaking several: the worst deliberate damage to a prehistoric monument in the country’s history, almost certainly born of a local grievance over the site’s management rather than of anything about the temples. The stones were surveyed, lifted and reset within the year. The repairs show only to those who know where to look.
The fence, the wardens and the shelter date from what came after. Mnajdra had stood open on the hillside for five thousand years; one night ended that. A site this old survives by being looked after, and being looked after changes it.
What to look at
- The trefoil plan of the upper temple, three rooms off one door
- The platform the middle temple stands on, levelled for a late build
- Fresh mortar and reset stones in the south temple, the 2001 repairs
Practical
- Route
- The medium route goes on along the cliff from here; only the full walk climbs to the tanks first.
- Terrain
- A slope inside the tent between the temples; rough paths beyond.
Walk to stop 08 · The Misqa Tanks
Leave the shelter on the landward side and take the path up onto the plateau. The tanks are in the open field at the top; the openings are unfenced.
About 7 min · 421 m