Ggantija - Gozo - Malta

Ggantija [juh GAN tee ah is how I heard it pronounced most of the time] is the temple Églantine and I went to visit on the island of Gozo. Gozo, you will remember, is the second island of the Malta group and just a 20 minute ferry ride from the main island. Ggantija is thought to be the oldest free standing structure in the world. Construction started about 6000 years ago. As we walked from the nearby road down a path, this was the first sight we had of the temple. The largest rocks used for construction were about the height of a normal one story house. (I don't know how thick they were.)



From the hill site of the temple, this is the view across the valley.



In the next photo, one can see Églantine near the back of the temple structure. Yes the roof caved in long ago but then it is over 5600 years old. How will your roof be in 5600 years?



This last photo shows the interior of one of the sections of the temple.



If you are interested in more details or more photos, do a Google search for "Ggantija" and you will get about 76,500 hits. On the other hand you can go to the Ggantija site for more information or to MaltaVista - Pictures - Ggantija for more photos including some neat air photos that were unavailable to those of us who visited on the ground.