Did you know that some people believe giants built the ancient temples in Malta? These temples, like Ħaġar Qim and Mnajdra, are over 5,000 years old and made from massive stone blocks that seem impossible to move without modern technology. Because of their size and mystery, legends say that giants once roamed the island and were the only ones strong enough to build them. While archaeologists think they were made by humans, using basic tools and clever engineering, the giant stories still capture imaginations. The temples are older than the pyramids, making them one of the oldest structures on Earth. Whether giants were involved or not, Malta’s temples are definitely amazing! Credit:
CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/:
Ggantija temples: By Stijndon, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21102635
Sleeping Lady Hal Saflieni: By Hamelin de Guettelet, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3787298
Tarxien Temples: By Frank Vincentz, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27746933
the Tarxien Temples: By Ethan Doyle White, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=64441587
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CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/:
Ggantija temples: By Stijndon, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21102635
Sleeping Lady Hal Saflieni: By Hamelin de Guettelet, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3787298
Tarxien Temples: By Frank Vincentz, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27746933
the Tarxien Temples: By Ethan Doyle White, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=64441587
Animation is created by Bright Side.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/
Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV
Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz
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Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightside.official
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brightside.official?lang=en
Stock materials (photos, footages and other):
https://www.depositphotos.com
https://www.shutterstock.com
https://www.eastnews.ru
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For more videos and articles visit:
http://www.brightside.me
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This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.
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FunTranscript
00:00We wouldn't call this island mystical unless there were tales of giants living here.
00:06The island of Gauzo in Malta is the backdrop of an ancient legend.
00:11Malta is an island country located in the Mediterranean Sea, just south of Europe.
00:16It's a very strategically located archipelago.
00:19Throughout history, it was ruled by many different societies, such as the Phoenicians, Greeks,
00:25Romans, and Carthaginians.
00:27One cold night, thousands of years ago, a farmer noticed the sky turn orange, then red,
00:34when he heard a loud thump.
00:36Although the ground seemed to be moving, this wasn't an earthquake.
00:39When he looked toward the woods, he saw a giant silhouette, taller than the trees.
00:45As he fearfully approached, he realized it was a woman, a giant woman.
00:50She introduced herself as Sansuna.
00:53Unlike the terrible giants of many tales, Sansuna didn't want to exterminate the human race.
00:59She was loving and caring.
01:01She told the farmer that she and her people could help protect their land from invaders.
01:06The locals were pretty interested in this offer.
01:08Since Malta is located in an important commercial route, it was constantly being invaded.
01:16The story says that Sansuna settled in Malta, and sooner rather than later, she was moving
01:22things around.
01:23And when I say things, I mean monoliths.
01:26Sansuna carried huge stones on her shoulder to build a magnificent temple called Gigantia,
01:32which means Place of Giants.
01:34She even did this while holding her half-giant, half-human kid on the other shoulder.
01:39Some say Sansuna lived exclusively on beans and honey, although others replaced honey
01:44with water.
01:46The funniest bit here is that Malta is the 10th smallest country in the world, but it
01:51somehow managed to host giants.
01:53Hey, go figure.
01:55The temple looked like a giant game of Tetris, with some stones weighing as much as 20 elephants.
02:01Some of these monolithic rocks are so heavy, scholars guess it would take 50 men working
02:06together to lift just one stone.
02:09As much as this is entertaining, humans never proved giants were real, so this story couldn't
02:15be true.
02:16There's a brief mention of a species of giants called the Nephilim in some ancient
02:20texts.
02:21The Nephilins would've been terrible giants that wreaked havoc on the Earth and only survived
02:26until the Great Flood.
02:28But nobody ever found real proof of this species really existing on Earth.
02:33Until this came along.
02:35The world of Maltese archaeology unearthed quite a few shocking things in the past years.
02:41One of them are known as the Hypodium skulls.
02:44Hypodium is the Greek word for underground, and this incredible site was discovered in
02:48the first decade of the 20th century.
02:51Back then, Malta's National Museum director received an important phone call.
02:56Someone had accidentally dug some impressive bones and asked him to come check it out.
03:01The Hypodium looked like an underground city, filled with mazes and rooms that stretched
03:06along multiple floors.
03:08They were all made with similar limestones, as the Maltese temples above ground.
03:13The Hypodium was filled with important relics and artifacts.
03:17Scientists quickly understood that the Hypodium was built as a type of final resting place
03:22for locals.
03:23So along with skulls, they found a lot of bones and skeletons.
03:27One of these artifacts were skulls.
03:29But these weren't regular human skulls.
03:32Rather, they were of the elongated type.
03:35To make matters worse, these skulls were hidden from the public for years.
03:39People started to talk and created a bunch of theories behind it.
03:43The truth is that this discovery was a turning point for Maltese archaeology, although scientists
03:48didn't know what to do with it.
03:51Some wondered if these skulls were natural or manipulated, since they knew some cultures
03:55in the world used head binds to alter their skulls.
03:59Other scientists threw in the hypothesis of little grey people or even the legendary giants.
04:05Some say that the elongated skulls could've been sculptures that worshipped otherworldly
04:09deities.
04:11There was no way to confirm any of these theories.
04:13So the question remained.
04:15Who were the builders of Malta's megalithic temples?
04:20Let's take a look at what scientists know.
04:23The Maltese megalithic temples have been standing strong since 3500 BCE, which is even older
04:29than the pyramids of Egypt.
04:31The main dilemma here is that these temples were built even before we invented writing.
04:36Yet they required advanced technological skills to exist.
04:40The Gigantia Temple seems too absurd to have been built by humans.
04:44The South Temple has a corridor with four oval rooms on the sides, looking like a big
04:49shamrock leaf.
04:51In one of these rooms, scientists found altars, decorated with spiral patterns.
04:56It looked like an altar of some sort, indicating early Maltese people used them for ritualistic
05:01purposes.
05:03The North Temple is similar but smaller, with a very low entrance that makes people crouch
05:08down to get inside.
05:09You get it?
05:10You need to bow down to their deities in order to get into this sacred place.
05:14I mean one can't help but wonder about the secret reasons these ancient builders had
05:19to build such a huge temple.
05:21I'm thinking they probably cast one of Daenerys' dragons to move the monoliths around.
05:26I'm joking here.
05:27But hey, remember the entrance to King's Landing?
05:30Yep, the series used the Medina Gates in Malta as the exterior of King's Landing during
05:35Episode 3 of Season 1.
05:39Back to the giants.
05:41The ritualistic theory of the whole thing won a few points when archaeologists uncovered
05:45these mysterious figures.
05:47They're popularly known as fat ladies.
05:50These tiny statues have round bodies and faces that show how much they enjoyed life.
05:56They kinda look like a miniature sunsana, the giantess we talked about.
06:00Scientists believe these were statues that celebrated well-being and prosperity.
06:05It does prove that the people of the time had advanced craftsmanship skills, and they
06:09were pretty intentional with their constructions and art manifestations.
06:14One of these statues is known as the Sleeping Lady.
06:18This Neolithic piece of art depicts the figure of a large woman lying on her side sleeping.
06:24After studying it deeper, scientists guessed this statue was meant to represent the Great
06:29Reaper.
06:30It was found in the Hypodium, which we now know was a huge resting place.
06:34This specific statue is different from all the other fat ladies, starting with the hair
06:39and the embroidered skirt.
06:41Then there's this statue.
06:43This is supposed to represent an 8-foot-tall woman and the rim of her skirt.
06:48She was discovered in the most unusual of ways.
06:51A farmer was trying to plow his field, but he kept hitting large blocks of stone.
06:56All the way back in 1915, the farmer called Malta's National Museum director and asked
07:01him to come check it out.
07:03Some think this is all the proof you need to confirm that sunsana was real.
07:08Others aren't all that sure.
07:11But that's not all.
07:12The place where this giant statue was buried revealed one of Malta's most impressive
07:17archaeological sites – the Targian Temples.
07:20The temples were made from limestone blocks.
07:23Some are 20 feet tall and weigh around 20 tons.
07:26Zamet, the museum director, kept digging and discovered multiple sites made of megalithic
07:32stones.
07:33All of them, supposedly built by Stone Age farmers, all stranded on a remote island in
07:38the Mediterranean Sea thousands of years ago.
07:41It just doesn't make sense.
07:43I mean, look at these temples in Manidra.
07:45This is probably the world's earliest calendar.
07:48On the equinoxes, the sun passes directly through the main doorway, straight down the
07:52central axis.
07:54On the solstices, there are two superb variations.
07:58During the summer solstice, the rays fall on the edge of the megalith to the left of
08:02the doorway.
08:03And during the winter, the rays fall to the right side of the doorway.
08:07It's astronomical precision at its finest.
08:11And what about the structures in the Hall Targian that we've already talked about?
08:15This complex is the oldest one in all of Malta.
08:18It was built with the purpose of doing animal offerings to deities.
08:23Scientists confirmed this by unearthing numerous animal bones buried in the soil.
08:27They also found a great collection of spirals, indicating that the locals also used this
08:32temple for ritualistic purposes.
08:35Overall, there are seven megalithic temples in Malta, each more impressive than the other.
08:41Scholars keep on digging to see if they can uncover the truth, much like researchers do
08:45with the pyramids of Egypt, the lost Mayan cities in the Americas, and other sites.
08:53That's it for today!
08:54So hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like and share it with your
08:59friends.
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