ROUGH STONE MONUMENTS 



valleys, each within sight of the other and of the 

 little rocky island of Filfla. 



The temple of Mnaidra is the simpler of the 

 two in plan (Fig. 21). It consists of two halves, 

 the more northerly of which was almost certainly 

 built later than the other. Each half consists of 

 two elliptical chambers set one behind the other. 

 The south half is the better preserved. It has a 

 concave facade of large orthostatic slabs with 

 horizontal blocks set in front of them to keep 

 them in position. In the centre of this opens a 

 short paved passage formed of fine upright slabs 

 of stone, one of which is 13 feet in height. The 

 first elliptical chamber (E) into which this passage 

 leads us has a length of 45 feet. Its walls (PI. Ill) 

 consist of roughly squared orthostatic slabs over 

 6 feet in height, above which are several courses 

 of horizontal blocks which carry the walls in 

 places up to a height of nearly 14 feet. This 

 combination of vertical and horizontal masonry 

 is typical of all the Maltese temples. To the left 

 of the entrance is a rectangular niche in the wall 

 containing one of the remarkable trilithons (a) 

 which form so striking a feature of Mnaidra and 

 Hagiar Kim. It consists of a horizontal slab of 

 stone nearly 10 feet in length, supported at its 

 ends by two vertical slabs about 5 feet high. To 

 the right of the entrance is a window-like opening 

 (b, behind the seated figure in PI. Ill) in one of 

 the slabs of the wall, preceded by two steps and 



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