The monitor on the front of the table sprang to life and displayed a map. Griffin assumed full lecture mode. “Malta is the main island in an archipelago that stretches from just south of the island of Sicily to Tunisia on the North African coast.”
Cassie squinted. “I don’t see it.”
Griffin moved his mouse pointer over the location.
“What, you mean that tiny little speck out in the middle of nowhere?”
“The very same,” Griffin concurred. “It fits our riddle rather well. If one were to board a ship and head west from Turkey, one would run directly into it.”
“In twelve days?” Erik challenged.
Griffin sighed. “I’m not as confident of the timing as I am of the location.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier to run into Sicily instead?” Cassie asked. “It’s a much bigger target.”
“Ah, but Malta is unique,” Griffin countered. “It has some distinctive features which would have made it quite appealing to the Minoans in search of a place to bury the Bones of the Mother. The Malta archipelago was once populated by a matristic civilization. As is true of all matristic societies, it was peaceful. No evidence of weaponry, no hilltop fortifications, no signs of violent death anywhere. The inhabitants also demonstrated a deep reverence for the mother goddess. Malta and its nearest neighbor, Gozo, contain the oldest known standing stone temples in the world.”
He switched to another image which displayed a sculpture of the lower half of a skirted human figure. The legs were heavy and egg-shaped, completely out of proportion to the tiny feet which supported them. “This is a carving of the principal deity of the culture. She was found in the Tarxien sanctuary, and her image must have originally stood almost ten feet high.”
“And I thought that little sculpture of the lady we saw in Turkey was on the hefty side. Jeez, this one must weigh a ton.” Cassie said.
“Quite literally,” Griffin agreed. “Her massive size was intended to express the immensity of creation. Here’s another such depiction.” The scrivener pressed his keyboard, and a new image appeared on the screen. It was a sculpture of a very rotund woman reclining on her side in an attitude of sleep. “This very famous sculpture is known as ‘The Sleeping Lady.’ She was found in the Hypogeum at Hal-Saflieni.”
“What’s a hypogeum?” Erik asked.
“An underground temple. In fact, Hal Saflieni is the oldest prehistoric underground temple found anywhere on the planet. It subsequently also served as a necropolis to house the bones of the dead. This statue was found in its main chamber, and the Sleeping Lady now reposes in the Museum of Archaeology in Valletta. Sculptures much like her can be found throughout the temples and cemeteries on both islands.”
“Temples and cemeteries plural?” Erik asked guardedly.
Griffin nodded. “Yes. There are thirty-four temples on Malta and another nine on Gozo. They all follow the same general design. Here’s an example.”
He switched to a new image. It appeared to be an overhead view of a series of sunken chambers all adjoining each other. The caption on the screen read “Ggantija.” Griffin repeated the word aloud, pronouncing it “Jen-ti-ya.”
“This temple is located on the island of Gozo. In Maltese, the name means ‘Giant’s Tower.’ Local legend has it that the structure was built by a female giant to be used as a place of worship. Note the shape of the temple. It consists of five apses.”
“Five what?” Cassie asked, not sure she had heard him right.
“Apses. An apse is a semi-circular recess. The way in which the five conjoin each other might remind one of a five-petaled cloverleaf or perhaps a highly stylized version of a human body. The lobe at the top represents the head, the two lobes in the middle are the arms, and the bottom two lobes the legs. The shape of each appendage could be described as egg-shaped or kidney-shaped if you will. It’s all in keeping with the general Maltese motif of full-bodied, rounded figures—like the half statue you’ve just seen.”
“What’s that next to it?” Maddie asked, referring to another structure adjacent to the temple.
“Maltese temples are usually constructed in pairs, one larger and one smaller,” Griffin replied. “They are also often differentiated by the type of stone used in construction. One darker and the other lighter. Some archaeologists have speculated that this difference in color is meant to indicate the double-goddess imagery of a mother-daughter divinity. Another theory holds that the larger of the two temples has to do with death and regeneration and the smaller with birth.”
“When were all these built?” Cassie asked.
Griffin paused before answering. “That’s an exceedingly interesting question. Conventional wisdom holds that the temples were constructed around 3500 BCE by tribes emigrating from Sicily. But, as is so often the case, conventional wisdom is wrong.”
“You mean to say these temples are older than that?” Maddie sounded surprised.
“Quite a bit older, I dare say,” the scrivener replied. “The evidence can be found in another temple on the larger island of Malta.” The screen displayed a new name. “Mnajdra.”
“Somebody should have told those people to buy more vowels,” Cassie noted. “How the heck would you pronounce that?”
“Eem-na-eed-ra.”
“It still sounds strange.”
“That’s because you’re used to pronouncing words which come from Indo-European languages—overlord languages. Maltese is not. Its roots are Semitic. Fortunately for all of us, English is the other official language of the islands.”
“That’s a relief,” Erik said.
Griffin forged ahead. “As I was saying, the evidence for the age of the temple comes from some interesting astronomical alignments which can still be observed there. The main entrance to Mnajdra faces east. During the spring and autumn equinoxes when days and nights are of equal length, the first rays of the sun fall on a stone slab at the rear wall of the second apse. During the winter and summer solstices when days are shortest and longest respectively, the sun illuminates the edges of two pillars on either side of the passageway connecting the main chambers.”
“But what about precession?” Cassie objected. “After what we went
