Work to start soon on Mnajdra heritage park

Work on the Hagar Qim and Mnajdra heritage park, a project that includes covering the world heritage sites against the weather, should start in the near future, Tourism and Culture Minister Francis Zammit Dimech said.

Speaking during a half-day seminar on the Xaghra Stone Circle in Gozo, Dr Zammit Dimech said there would be financial aid from the European Union for the work.

The minister said the government was in the process of rehabilitating these temples to their former glory, and to promote heritage in a modern way.

"This will not only make the Maltese more aware and proud of our heritage but will consolidate one of our best niche markets," he said.

The minister said Malta laid claim to 7,000 years of history. He then gave an account of the different phases of Maltese history and paraphrased Brian Blouet's words that there were many who saw Malta "not as an obscure backwater in prehistory, but rather as a centre from which Western Mediterranean Megalithic (big stone) architecture was derived".

The Xaghra Stone Circle formed part of this era and was used for funerary rites. The minister said remains were recorded for the first time 180 years ago, in 1824, when Col Otto Bayer was digging in the site - the pit created by Bayer was filled in and the site disappeared.

But the site, immortalised by Charles de Brochtorff's watercolour paintings, was located again by Joe Attard Tabone in the 1960s who, studying the two Brochtorff watercolours, figured out the field where the Stone circle had been situated.

A spokesman for Gozo minister Giovanna Debono said Gozo had a rich cultural heritage disproportionate with its small size.

Ms Debono's message, read out in her absence, said the island could not be expected to shoulder the "enviable burden" of preserving this legacy on its own, and thanked Heritage Malta for its initiatives in favour of preserving Gozo's heritage.