Tal-Qadi Temple is a megalithic temple in Salina, limits of

Naxxar Naxxar ( mt, In-Naxxar) is a small city in the Northern Region of Malta, with a population of 14,891 people as of March 2014. The Naxxar Church is dedicated to Our Lady of Victories. The annual village feast is celebrated on 8 September. Naxx ...

Malta Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...

. It is in a very bad state of preservation, with only the temple's general outline still visible.

Site

The site of Tal-Qadi was possibly in use around 4000 BC, during the Ġgantija phase of Maltese prehistory, but the temple itself was built during the

Tarxien phase The Tarxien phase is one of the eleven phases of Maltese prehistory. It is named for the temple complex discovered near the village of Ħal Tarxien, and now recognised as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. The Tarxien phase, from approximately ...

between 3300 and 3000 BC. The temple continued to be used during the Tarxien Cemetery phase, since pottery sherds from that era have been found. Tal-Qadi is the only temple in Malta which is orientated to the north-east. Most other temples face the south or south-east, but in the case of Tal-Qadi this would not have been possible since there is a steep slope in that direction. Today, the temple is in poor condition, with few remains visible apart from its general outline. The remains of a central area and two apses can still be seen. The temple probably contained another two apses, giving it a four-apse shape which was typical of the late temple period. No traces of the temple's façade exist.

Excavation and recent history

The scattered remains of the temple, spread out on an upper and a lower field, were discovered by Henry Sant, a government civil engineer, in 1916. The area was excavated in 1927 by

Themistocles Zammit Sir Themistocles "Temi" Zammit (or Żammit; 30 September 1864 – 2 November 1935) was a Maltese archaeologist and historian, professor of chemistry, medical doctor, researcher and writer. He served as Rector (1920–26) of the Royal Univer ...

and L. Upton Way. According to Zammit, years before the identification of the temple, the tenant of the site had destroyed a group of upright stones. These might have been the remains of the temple's missing façade or its outer casing. The remains of the temple were surveyed and mapped in 1952. Himmelstafel

During the early excavations, a broken globigerina limestone slab showing five sections separated by lines, and incised with star-like figures and a crescent shape in the middle was found. This slab possibly was a star map or a moon calendar. It is now located in the National Museum of Archaeology in

Valletta Valletta (, mt, il-Belt Valletta, ) is an administrative unit and capital of Malta. Located on the main island, between Marsamxett Harbour to the west and the Grand Harbour to the east, its population within administrative limits in 2014 wa ...

. The following pictures explain how the sky tablet of Tal-Qadi can be used in order to measure the

ecliptic latitude The ecliptic coordinate system is a celestial coordinate system commonly used for representing the apparent positions, orbits, and pole orientations of Solar System objects. Because most planets (except Mercury) and many small Solar System bod ...

of the moon or the planets that always apparently move along the arc of the

ecliptic The ecliptic or ecliptic plane is the orbital plane of the Earth around the Sun. From the perspective of an observer on Earth, the Sun's movement around the celestial sphere over the course of a year traces out a path along the ecliptic agains ...

:Markus Bautsch
The Tal-Qadi Sky Tablet
Wikibook, 2020, retrieved 10 November 2020 Goldenes.Tor.der.Ekliptik.Venus.P1022936.jpg, The bright

Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never f ...

in the cone of the

zodiacal light The zodiacal light (also called false dawn when seen before sunrise) is a faint glow of diffuse sunlight scattered by interplanetary dust. Brighter around the Sun, it appears in a particularly dark night sky to extend from the Sun's direction ...

8 degrees above the western horizon on 23 March 2020. This was eleven days before Venus approached the Golden Gate of the Ecliptic (centre) between the

Pleiades The Pleiades (), also known as The Seven Sisters, Messier 45 and other names by different cultures, is an asterism and an open star cluster containing middle-aged, hot B-type stars in the north-west of the constellation Taurus. At a distance ...

(right) and the Hyades together with

Aldebaran Aldebaran (Arabic: “The Follower”, "الدبران") is the brightest star in the zodiac constellation of Taurus. It has the Bayer designation α Tauri, which is Latinized to Alpha Tauri and abbreviated Alpha Tau or α Tau. Alde ...

(left) in the constellation

Taurus Taurus is Latin for 'bull' and may refer to: * Taurus (astrology), the astrological sign * Taurus (constellation), one of the constellations of the zodiac * Taurus (mythology), one of two Greek mythological characters named Taurus * '' Bos tauru ...

(centre). Goldenes.Tor.der.Ekliptik.Venus.Ekliptik.P1022936.jpg, The ecliptic latitude of Venus (thin red dashed line), i.e. her distance from the ecliptic (thick red dashed line), is 3.0 degrees. Goldenes.Tor.der.Ekliptik.Venus.Ekliptik.Himmelstafel.P1022936.jpg, Measurement of the ecliptic latitude along the long straight edge of the tablet that was aligned to the fixed stars displayed on the sky tablet. Goldenes.Tor.der.Ekliptik.Venus.Ekliptik.Himmelstafel.Namen.P1022936.jpg, Position of the aligned tablet between the bright stars of the night sky with the present-day constellations.

Full history

Full history
p. 36-44.

References

External links

National Inventory of the Cultural Property of the Maltese Islands
* Wikibook: The Tal-Qadi Sky Tablet {{European megaliths Megalithic Temples of Malta Neolithic sites Naxxar 1916 archaeological discoveries National Inventory of the Cultural Property of the Maltese Islands