He sheds light on a temple complex that is overlooked on the daily.
There’s something remarkable about areas in which ancient architecture meets modern-day development. One such example on the Maltese Islands are the Bugibba Temples, located right by the Dolmen Hotel.
The Bugibba Temples are actually one of the lesser known attractions on the islands, and one person who thinks so too is Evan Hadfield of Rare Earth, a YouTube channel that features a series of rare sites around the world. And Malta’s Bugibba Temples made the cut!
“I am in northern Malta again, in the town of Bugibba, and I’m feeling sorry for a rock,” he starts off, captioning his video as ‘The Ancient Temple Nobody Loves.’ Now that’s sad. But, with reason, and you’ll soon understand why. “In Malta there are dozens of unbelievably impressive megaliths doting the landscape. With some clocking in at over 5,500 years old, they’ve been here longer than virtually any other structures on the planet.”
As opposed to listing all the well-known temples around the islands, Evan uses a different approach. “I want to tell you about one of the temples that everybody ignores,” he says, standing in front of the Bugibba Temples. “I’d say it’s probably among the most disrespected historical sites I’ve ever seen, and not just on this island,” he says.
They’re “no less historically impressive than the ones you may already know. It has every bit as much pedigree as the big boys. It too was built 5,000 years ago by the same culture who would have constructed Ggantija,” he says. “The history is here too, there just isn’t as much of it. It just isn’t as pretty.”
“Yet, despite the fact that it is as central to Malta’s tourist centre as you can get, when you come here, there’s virtually nobody else here,” Evan notes. “Despite that there are hundreds of hotel rooms looking down on this, hell, you can see it from the pool, you won’t find hundreds of people here.”
Evan explains that this is because a hotel was built around the temple complex in a touristy town. Tourists have even gone as far as to question whether the temples are real, having not been qualified to enter the brochure. “Most people that pass by it aren’t aware that it’s history. It feels more like a kitschy tourist town’s poorly built replica of the thing than the actual thing itself.” He says that, because the Bugibba Temples have been presented in the wrong way, they unfortunately go unnoticed.
“Just because there’s some bigger, badder, better temple down the way, doesn’t mean that Bugibba Temple doesn’t deserve a little love too. Because after all, if our bodies were temples, which one would yours be?
Watch the video here: