Book on temples receives international attention

The book Malta Before History, which celebrates the islands' unique prehistoric temples, has been reviewed in the international press and sections of it have already appeared in foreign magazines due to the worldwide interest in the subject.

Published by Miranda Publishers, in their traditional quality format, the book follows their other popular publications such as Malta 360° and The Sovereign Palaces of Malta.

It is intended to "secure Malta's name on the world's cultural map", said Miranda Publishers marketing director Eddie Aquilina.

At the book fair in Frankfurt in 2002, Mr Aquilina said he had been inundated with interest from top publishers. Their enthusiastic reaction and the sad fact that most had not heard of the temples in Malta had prompted him to double the number of pages.

"Malta Before History should serve to promote the island and encourage visitors who are interested in archaeology and have been to the major prehistoric sites in Egypt and the Middle East, but who have not yet seen the world's oldest free-standing stone monuments," Mr Aquilina said.

The publication should bring the islands to the attention of new generations of historians, archaeologists and academics, as well as travellers, who did not know that Malta was home to such ancient sites.

The sites, Mr Aquilina said, were a symbol of the Maltese identity and one thing the Maltese could boast about on an international scale.

Malta Before History, penned by 10 Maltese and foreign scholars, who try to answer and unearth questions buried in prehistory, proved that the islands' prehistoric temples were older than the pyramids in Egypt and Stonehenge in the UK.

Marking a move by Miranda Publishers into a more scholarly publication, packed with 147,000 words of information, the 440 pages contain 1,171 colour photographs, plans, maps, graphic illustrations, reconstruction drawings and artists' impressions of how the sites may have looked in their original state, as well as a foreword by leading archaeologist Lord Colin Renfrew.

Contributors include David Trump, Anthony Pace, Anthony Bonanno, Ann Monsarrat, Daniel Clarke, Alex Torpiano, Frank Ventura, Reuben Grima, Michael Hughes Clarke and Richard England.

The text is technical, but readable, and chapters include studies on the building of megalithic Malta and the Bronze Age, as well the cart ruts enigma and whether the Fat Lady was a god, or a goddess.

The stunning photography is by Daniel Cilia, as is the design and editing. Mr Cilia has been working on the project for 10 years, archaeology being his speciality.

Malta Before History should be translated into French, German and Italian to maximise exposure. A website is also being launched, Mr Aquilina said, hoping a less expensive version of the book would get into the school curriculum one day.

Exhibitions are to be organised overseas, with the first to be held in Washington later on in the year.

Malta Before History was also officially launched by President Eddie Fenech Adami as part of the run-up to the celebrations of Malta's accession to the EU.