vel than the rest of the building, have been added. Here, too,
as at Mnaidra, we find niches containing trilithon tables. In the first
elliptical area, in which the apsidal ends are divided from the central
space by means of walls of vertical slabs, a remarkable group of objects
was found. In front of a well-cut vertical block stood what must be an
altar, cut in one piece of stone. It is square in section except for the
top, which is circular. On the four vertical edges are pilasters in
relief, and in the front between these is cut in relief what looks like
a plant growing out of a pot or box. To the left of the altar and the
vertical slab behind were an upright stone with two hanging spirals cut
on it in relief, and at its foot a horizontal slab. Both the altar and
the carved stone are covered with small pit-marks.

In the outside wall of the building, quite unconnected with the
interior, is a niche partly restored on old foundations, in which stands
a rough stone pillar 6-1/2 feet high. In front of this pillar is a
vertical slab nearly 3 feet high, narrowing towards the base, and
covered with pit-markings. This pillar can hardly be anything but a
baetyl, or sacred stone.

The temple called the Gigantia, on the island of Gozo, is no less
remarkable than the two which we have already described; in one place
its wall is preserved up to a height of over 20 feet. The plan is
similar to that of Mnaidra, though here the two halves seem to have been
built at one and the same time. Several of the blocks show a design of
spirals in relief, while on others there are the usual pit-markings.
Another bears a figure of a fish or serpent. At the foot of one of the
trilithons was found a baetyl 51 inches in height, now in the museum at
Valletta.

That these three buildings were sanctuaries of some kind seems almost
certain from their form and arrangement. We do not, however, know what
was the exact nature of the worship carried on in them, though there can
be no doubt that the stone tables supported by single pillars and the
trilithons found in the niches played an important part in the ritual.
Sir Arthur Evans in his famous article _Mycenaean Tree and Pillar Cult_
has suggested that in Malta we have a cult similar to that seen in the
Mycenaean world. This latter was an aneiconic worship developed out of
the cult of the dead; in it the deity or hero was represented by a
baetyl, i.e. a tree or pillar sometimes standing free, sometime