The two standard works on the archaeology of Malta are EvansJ. D., The prehistoric antiquities of the Maltese islands (London, 1971) and, at a more popular level, TrumpD. H., Malta: An archaeological guide (1st edn, London, 1972; 2nd edn, Valetta, 1988).
2.
AgiusGeorge and VenturaFrank, Investigation into the possible astronomical alignments of the Copper Age temples in Malta (Malta, 1980). This booklet, published by Malta University Press, was republished in revised form in Archaeoastronomy [bulletin], iv (1981), 10–21.
3.
VenturaFrank and TantiTony, “Orientations of Malta's megalithic temples”, article in the Malta Sunday Times Building and Architecture Supplement, 5 August 1990.
4.
The relative dating of the two temples at Ta' Hagrat is discussed by TrumpD. H. in his Skorba and the prehistory of Malta (Society of Antiquaries Research Report no. 22; London, 1966), 18–19. As Dr Trump kindly confirms in a private communication (21 January 1992) to Hoskin, the evidence is complex but the larger temple probably belongs to the Ggantija phase and the smaller to the succeeding Saflieni (see Trump, Malta, 139). Certainly, on the minimalist approach adopted here, it would be unsafe for us to include the axis of the smaller temple.
5.
Trump, Malta, 159.
6.
On this see AveniA. F., Skywatchers of ancient Mexico (Austin, Texas, 1980), 30–35.
7.
Hoskin has argued that the ‘taula’ sanctuaries of Bronze Age Menorca were laid out so that the Southern Cross and the Centaurus stars could be seen framed in the entrance to the sanctuary (HoskinMichael, “The orientations of the taulas of Menorca (1): The southern taulas”, Archaeoastronomy (supplement to Journal for the history of astronomy), no. 14 (1989), S117–36, espec. pp. S126–7, where there is mention of the interest in these stars in other parts of the world). It has been suggested on structural grounds that the taulas derive from the temples of Malta; but now that radiocarbon dating has widened the gap between the end of temple construction in Malta and the beginning of taula building in Menorca to at least one millennium, this seems unlikely.
