Ġgantija, Malta – around 3700 BC.
A Neolithic, megalithic temple complex on the Mediterranean island of Gozo. The Ġgantija temples are the earliest of a series of megalithic temples in Malta. This group of temples are older than Stonehenge and Egyptian pyramids. Their makers erected the two Ġgantija temples during the Neolithic Age (c. 3600-2500 BC), which makes them more than 5500 years old. They are the world’s second oldest manmade religious structures, after Göbekli Tepe.
Excellently preserved, they were rediscovered and restored in the 19th century by European and native Maltese archaeologists. While not much is known about who built them, evidence from inside the temples suggest that local farmers constructed the stony structures. There are several temples scattered around, the most important one of them all is the two-temple complex at Ggantija. Together with other similar structures, these have been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Megalithic Temples of Malta.
