page_title: National Museum of Archaeology, Malta
section_title: Temple Period Rooms (3800–2500 BC)
hierarchical_section_title: National Museum of Archaeology, Malta / Collection / Temple Period Rooms (3800–2500 BC)
caption_attribution_description: déesse-mère ou déesse de la fécondité découverte sur le site de Skorba (4400-4100 BCE)
context_page_description: The National Museum of Archaeology is a Maltese museum in Valletta, with artefacts from prehistory, Phoenician times and a notable numismatic collection. It is managed by Heritage Malta.
context_section_description: These rooms show examples of architecture, human representation and other items that date from the Mġarr, Ġgantija, Saflieni and Tarxien phases of Maltese prehistory. The temples that were built at this time are considered to be the world’s first free standing monuments and are listed in the UNESCO World Heritage List.
  The museum exhibits numerous corpulent statues representing human bodies unearthed from temple excavations, along with phallic representations. Until recently the statues were called Mother Goddesses, Fat Ladies, Deities and Priests among other names, but it is now argued that these statues were probably asexual and represented a human being, irrespective of whether it was male or female. The representations vary in size and shape, with the largest being as tall as 2.7 m and the smallest 4 mm.
  The discovery of temple altars and corpulent human representations suggests that some type of cult existed on the islands of Malta and Gozo in prehistory. Given the corpulency of the statues it may be that the cult was tied to a fertility rite. Fertility at this time must have been very important since, apart from family growth, it also meant the reproduction of crops and animals.
  The exhibition includes altars excavated from the Tarxien Temples that were probably used for animal sacrifices. They were brought to the museum for conservation reasons.
caption: Red Skorba figurine
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