Sirius the Star of the Maltese Temples

by Lenie Reedijk

It had long been thought that the Mesolithic, which is the period following on the last Ice Age, was a cultural void. This may have been true to a certain extent with regards to pottery, the flagship of archaeological sequence dating. Conventional thought places its invention in the Near East in around 6000 BC. Consequently, little was known about the period before that date. The discovery of the orientation of the Maltese temples to Sirius results in a logical progression in the temple building sequence. One might expect the smallest buildings to be the oldest and the most dilapidated, and the largest to be the youngest. Their astronomical dating shows this to be broadly true. Moreover, their orientation to Sirius explains the slight shift in their axes, caused by the movement of the stars called the precession of the equinoxes, with almost mathematical precision. The astronomical dating of the temples presented in this book is on a par with other megalithic sites at the same latitude of Malta, going back to the Mesolithic period. The implications are far reaching, not just for Malta but for a much wider sphere. Once freeing ourselves from the dictates of the old nineteenth century philosophies about our past, new vistas open before our eyes of a legacy we never dreamed existed. The ancient megalithic ruins that are found all over the world, but foremost in Malta, begin to speak another language, not that of primitive cave-dwellers but of primeval astronomers.

198 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2018

Reviews

[Barron · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book lays out a controversial perspective in the tiny niche arena of the archaeology of ancient Maltese temples, and condemns various swathes of the archaeological establishment in doing so. Very well illustrated with various maps, photographs, and figures.