[11] Maltese folklore describes giants as having built the temples, which led to the name Ġgantija, meaning 'Giants' tower'.

'[13] The Tarxien temples owe their name to the locality where they were found (from Tirix, meaning a large stone), as were the remains excavated at Skorba.

The main problem found is that the sites themselves are evolutionary in nature, in that each successive temple brought with it further refinement to architectural development.

Furthermore, in some cases, later Bronze Age peoples built their own sites over the Neolithic temples, thus adding an element of confusion to early researchers who did not have modern dating technology.

[24] The Temple culture reached its climax in this period, both in terms of the craftsmanship of pottery, as well as in sculptural decoration, both free-standing and in relief.

[27] The Maltese temple complexes were built in different locations, and over a wide span of years; while each individual site has its unique characteristics, they all share a common architecture.

The monuments' façades and internal walls are made up of orthostats, a row of large stone slabs laid on end.

[28] The centre of the façades is usually interrupted by an entrance doorway forming a trilithon, a pair of orthostats surmounted by a massive lintel slab.

[32] In cases of more complex temples, a second axial passage is built, using the same trilithon construction, leading from the first set of apses into another later pair, and either a fifth central or a niche giving the four or five apsial form.

[36] Although in their present form the temples are unroofed, a series of unproven theories regarding possible ceiling and roof structures have been debated for several years.

Its presence was known for a very long time, and even before any excavations were carried out a largely correct plan of its layout was drawn by Jean-Pierre Houël in the late eighteenth century.

[41] The loss resulting from this clearance was partially compensated by the German artist Brochtorff, who painted the site within a year or two from the removal of the debris.

[42] The plan of the temple incorporates five large apses, with traces of the plaster that once covered the irregular wall still clinging between the blocks.

The two parts are both less regularly planned and smaller in size than many of the other neolithic temples in Malta, and no blocks are decorated.

A village on the site that pre-dates the temples by centuries has provided plentiful examples of what is now known as Mġarr phase pottery.

[47] This monument has a typical three-apsed shape of the Ġgantija phase, of which the greater part of the first two apses and the whole of the façade have been destroyed to ground level.

What remains are the stone paving of the entrance passage, with its perforations, the torba floors,[48] and a large upright slab of coralline limestone.

[49] The north wall is in better shape; originally the entrance opened on a court, but the doorway was later closed off in the Tarxien phase, with altars set in the corners formed by the closure.

Among the domestic deposits found in this material, which included charcoal and carbonised grain, there were several fragments of daub, accidentally baked.

The third temple, built early in the Tarxien phase and so second in date, opens on the court at a lower level.

[65] During the equinox, the rays of the rising sun pass straight through the principal doorway to reach the innermost central niche.

[69] The earliest temple to the north-east was built between 3600 and 3200 BC; it consisted of two parallel sets of semi-circular apses, with a passage in the middle.

[72] The second temple is more elaborately constructed, the walls being finished with greater care, some of the standing slabs being decorated with flat raised spirals.

Malta has various other megalithic temples and related sites apart from those included in the UNESCO World Heritage list.

A submerged site known as Ġebel ġol-Baħar possibly exists off the coast of Malta, but it is not proven to be a megalithic temple.