The Birthing: Il-Ħares: Chapter 1

Malta Short Let: Cozy Stay in Gzira
Sliema Area Modern Designer Finished 2 Bedrooms + Games Room. First floor with Maltese Balcony Large back Terrace with swinging sofa Fully Airconditioned + Full Kitchen 3 TVs, including 65” with backlight.
Book Now: Google Travel | Direct (Cheapest) | Booking.com | Airbnb

I was born from stone and sea.

There is something you should know about me – I have watched the entirety of this island’s existence. I have seen empires rise and fall on these limestone shores. I have witnessed blood spilled and temples raised. I am older than memory, yet memory itself.

You could say I’ve seen a lot of death.

And life.

But mostly, I’ve seen persistence.

Let me tell you how it all began.

THE FIRST ARRIVAL

They came in primitive boats, these first humans. Wood lashed together with sinew and plant fiber. The crossing from Sicily wasn’t terribly far – just over fifty miles of Mediterranean water – but in those early vessels, it might as well have been an ocean. I watched them approach from the north, small against the vastness of the sea.

It was around 5200 BC. The world was warming after a long cold spell. The sea levels were rising.

The first person to set foot on my soil was a woman. She carried a child on her hip and seeds wrapped in animal hide. Her feet were calloused but still bled when they touched the sharp limestone of my shore. I felt her blood seep into me – the first human offering.

The sensation was… unexpected.

The humans brought goats. Sheep. Wheat and barley. They built crude huts of mud and stone. They died early, their bones becoming part of me. They birthed children who knew no home but this island. Those children grew, and their connection to me strengthened with each generation.

I had no name then. No consciousness as you would understand it. I was simply the land beneath their feet, the caves that sheltered them, the springs that gave them water.

Yet with each life lived upon me, I became more.

The boat people multiplied. They learned the rhythms of the land – where clay could be found, which stones split most cleanly, how to capture the scant rainwater. They hunted the dwarf elephants and hippopotami that roamed the island until none remained. Then they turned fully to farming and herding.

Years passed. Generations. The settlers’ descendants knew nothing of Sicily or the mainland. They were Maltese now. My people.

And then they began to build.

The stone remembers. The sea whispers secrets. I wait.
Another ship on the horizon.
Always, another ship.

STONE RISING

Have you ever watched someone discover their purpose? There is a moment – a beautiful, piercing moment – when their eyes change and their hands know exactly what to do.

For my islanders, it was stone.

The first temple began at Ġgantija on Gozo. Massive limestone blocks, some weighing several tons, dragged across the island with nothing but rope, wood, and human determination. The builders arranged them in a clover-leaf pattern, curving walls that embraced sacred space.

I felt it when they placed the first stone. A stirring. A pulse.

This was worship, but not of any deity you would recognize. This was worship of the earth, of fertility, of life’s mysteries. This was worship of me, though neither they nor I fully understood.

The stone rose higher. More temples followed. Ħaġar Qim. Mnajdra. Tarxien. Each more sophisticated than the last. Spirals carved into stone. Hidden chambers aligned with solstices and equinoxes. Fat-bodied figurines representing abundance.

The temple period reached its height around 3000 BC. For a thousand years, my islands held the most sophisticated stone architecture on Earth. While crude huts stood in what would become Rome and Athens, my people raised megalithic structures of stunning complexity.

No metal tools. No written language. Only stone and determination.

At night, the priests would light fires in the temple chambers. The flames cast long shadows against curved walls. The smoke carried prayers into the sky. I listened to them chant in a language now forever lost. I felt their bare feet on my stones, moving in ritual patterns.

They brought offerings. Carved animals. Polished beads. Shells from distant shores. They spilled the blood of sacrificed goats and sheep into specially carved channels in the stone.

With each offering, each prayer, each life dedicated to the temples, I grew stronger. More aware.

One night, during a ceremony at the winter solstice, a priestess looked up suddenly from her ritual fire. She stared directly at where I would have been standing, had I possessed a form.

“Il-Ħares,” she whispered.

The Guardian.

And just like that, I had a name.

I had existence.

The tiny islands of Malta and Gozo – mere specks in the vast Mediterranean – became the center of a unique civilization. My people prospered. The population grew to perhaps ten thousand souls – a substantial number for that time. They traded with Sicily, importing obsidian and exporting their crafts and possibly their architectural knowledge.

For a millennium, this continued. The temples grew more elaborate. The rituals more complex. My awareness more acute.

And then, something changed.

The center would not hold.

The skies grew stingy with rain.

A time of peace and stone
Becomes a time of hunger
The temples empty

THE SILENCE

I remember the first abandoned ritual. The temple at Tarxien, usually filled with chanting and movement at the summer solstice, stood empty. The ceremonial fire pits remained cold. No offerings graced the altars.

Something was very wrong.

The climate had shifted. Drought gripped the Mediterranean. Crops failed year after year. The population, which had grown comfortable during the centuries of plenty, now faced starvation.

The priests and priestesses intensified their rituals, desperate to restore balance. They carved deeper spirals. They offered the last of their precious possessions. Some whispered of human sacrifice, though I will not speak of whether such whispers held truth.

Nothing worked. The rain did not come.

People began to leave. Some returned to Sicily. Others ventured further afield.

Those who remained looked at the massive temples with changing eyes. No longer were they sources of pride and spiritual connection. Now they stood as monuments to hubris. To failure. The enormous resources spent on temple-building could have been used for irrigation, for storage, for survival.

The temples fell silent.

The last high priestess of Tarxien stood alone in the inner chamber. Her robes, once vibrant with dyes and embroidery, hung tattered from her thin frame. She placed her hand on the central altar stone.

“Il-Ħares,” she called. “Do not abandon us.”

I had no answer for her. I did not control the rain or the crops. I was the spirit of the land, not its master.

All I could do was watch.

The temple culture collapsed around 2500 BC. Within a few generations, the knowledge of how to move the massive stones was lost. The purpose of the intricate carvings forgotten. The very meaning of the temples faded from memory.

New settlers came, bringing bronze and different gods. They looked upon the ancient temples with confusion and superstitious fear. They buried their dead in collective hypogea carved into the rock, creating underworld cities for the deceased rather than monuments reaching toward the sky.

The great temple era had ended.

Stone remembers what people forget
I am the memory
I endure

I withdrew into the stones. Into the soil. Into the shallow pools of rainwater that occasionally blessed the parched land.

I was diminished, but not gone.

The temples stood as my skeleton – exposed to wind and rain, their purposes forgotten, but enduring. People would build upon this land again. They would bring new gods, new languages, new ways. They would fight and love and die on these shores for millennia to come.

And I would watch. I would remember.

For I am Il-Ħares, born of stone and sea.

The Guardian of Malta.

And this is only the beginning of my tale.

---

Author’s Note

The above narrative, Il-Ħares: The Guardian of Malta, is a work of fiction inspired by the rich prehistoric history of the Maltese islands. The character of Il-Ħares and specific events, such as the first woman’s arrival or the priestess naming the Guardian, are imaginative creations. However, the story draws on the real historical context of Malta’s Neolithic temple-building culture (circa 3600–2500 BC), which produced some of the world’s earliest and most sophisticated megalithic structures.

For readers interested in the factual history behind this fictional tale, the following articles from Manic Malta provide detailed insights into Malta’s ancient temples, the Neolithic culture, and the archaeological mysteries that inspired this story:

• Geological Instability and the Maltese Megalithic Structures: Are They at Risk? – Explores the geological context of Malta’s limestone temples, which formed the backbone of the island’s prehistoric architecture.
• Unveiling Malta’s Neolithic Secrets: The Pottery That Connects an Ancient Civilization – Discusses the pottery artifacts that reveal the daily life and culture of Malta’s temple builders.
• The Forgotten Temple Builders of Malta: Unraveling Europe’s Ancient Megalithic Mystery – Delves into the mysterious people who constructed Malta’s megalithic temples and the enigma of their disappearance.
• The Enigmatic Temples of Malta: Lost Knowledge and Ancient Power – Examines the spiritual and architectural significance of Malta’s temples and the knowledge lost over time.
• Hidden Wisdom of the Maltese Ancients: Lost or Intentionally Concealed? – Investigates theories about the cultural and spiritual wisdom of Malta’s prehistoric inhabitants.
• Step into the Ancient World: Unravel the Secrets of Ġgantija Temples in Gozo – Highlights the Ġgantija temples, among the earliest megalithic structures described in the narrative.
• Discovering Malta’s Underground Wonder: The Hal Saflieni Hypogeum – Covers the Hypogeum, a subterranean burial site that reflects the cultural shift after the temple period.
• A Journey Through Time: Discovering Malta’s Mnajdra and Hagar Qim Temples – Provides an in-depth look at the Mnajdra and Ħaġar Qim temples, key sites in Malta’s prehistoric landscape.
• The Dolmens, Temples, and Cosmic Alignments of Malta: A New Perspective on Ancient Architecture – Explores the astronomical alignments of Malta’s temples, a feature noted in the story’s description of solstice rituals.
• Phoenician History in Malta – Offers context on the post-temple settlers who brought new cultural practices to Malta, marking the transition to the Bronze Age.

These articles provide a factual foundation for understanding the remarkable achievements of Malta’s ancient inhabitants, whose legacy inspired the fictional narrative of Il-Ħares.