Malta – Northern Region – Skorba Temples

I decided to walk to Skorba Temples from the hotel, which was just over an hour walk, as it’s one of the last historic sites I’ve yet to visit from my Heritage Malta pass. It’s a relative recent discovery, with the archaeological dig dating back only to the 1960s, but the site dates back to 4,850BC. For something that dates back 6,000 years that’s quite special and it was soon after listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

There isn’t really much to see here in terms of the scale of the site, with nearly everything visible by just looking through the fence. The ticket buying process is a little convoluted for those without passes, they have to buy them at a different location or go and hunt some farm in the village down. There is a ticket desk at the site, but I imagine that they want it to be cash free, hence the no ticket purchase policy.

The main temple area, which was added around 1,200 years after the first settlement at the site.

This is one of the tallest standing stones remaining at the site. Much of the stone has gone missing over the centuries, likely reused for buildings and walls over the course of time.

There hasn’t been much messed about with at the site in terms of some form of modern reconstruction, although there’s a limited amount for them to mess about with. For a site this old though I’m surprised there’s not a greater protection in the form of some sort of overhead canopy and the information boards could perhaps be improved a little in terms of their positioning.

A site of this age and importance does perhaps warrant a small museum of its own at the location, although I assume that the visitor numbers would be too low to justify this. Anyway, it’s marvellous that anything has remained standing for this long and I’m glad it’s here.