Ta’ Hagrat Temple, Mgarr, Malta
Posted by: 
arby101ca
N 35° 55.123 E 014° 22.123
33S E 443045 N 3975117
The Ta’ Hagrat Temple at Mgarr is one of the earliest temple sites on Malta, dated to the Ggantija phase, 3600-3000 BC.
Waymark Code: WM8GB6
Location: Malta
Date Posted: 03/29/2010
Views: 25
The Ta’ Hagrat Temple is located on the south edge of the town of Mgarr, Malta. This is one of the smaller, lesser known temples but it is significant and is classified as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Ta’ Hagrat was built during the early Ggantija Phase of temple building, 3600 to 3000 BC. The nearby Skorba temple about 1 km away and the Ggantija temples on Gozo were built during this phase.
At a meeting of the Malta Astronomical Society, I discussed briefly the orientation of the temple with Prof Frank Ventura of the University of Malta. He is an expert on the orientation of temples and the possible alignment with celestial objects, the sun, moon or stars. His paper “The Orientation of the Temples on Malta”, published in 1992 in the Jornal of Historical Astronomy (JHA) is available at this web site (
visit link) In this paper he notes that all the temples of the Ggantija phase have a similar orientation and may have been aligned to the rise of the upper star of the Southern Cross. Perhaps but interpretation of the rocks is difficult. I have attached a drawing of the site from this paper.
Unfortunately the temple site was closed when we visited and the security guard would not let us in. The site is only opened 9:30 to 11:00on Tuesday mornings throughout the year. This did not work for us during our short visit to Malta, three weeks in total but only a few days in this area. The pictures that show nothing more than a jumble of rocks were taken through the gate and over the fence.