The Med.Archeo.Sites Project is an Interreg III B Archimed Project involving the participation of Italy, Sicily, Greece, Libya and Malta. The project is aimed at cataloguing archaeological heritage, so that it could be managed in a better way, and will involve the recording of monumental archaeological sites in Italy, Greece, Crete and Malta. Scientific studies about the different sites will also be conducted. Information gathered will be disseminated in the form of publications, public meetings, dvds and websites.

The aim of this project is to raise awareness of cultural heritage in the Mediterranean, and should lead to activities relating to the preservation of archaeological sites. As part of this project, Heritage Malta will be working on the two prehistoric sites of Ta’ Hagrat and Skorba in Mgarr.

The site at Ta’ Hagrat consists of two adjacent temples with the older one dating to 3600 – 3200 BC. These were excavated under the direction of Temi Zammit in the 1920s. One of the most notable finds from this excavation is a small limestone model of a temple which is now exhibited at the National Museum of Archaeology.

Skorba Temples, located about a kilometre away from Ta’ Hagrat, were excavated by David Trump in the 1960s. This excavation resulted in the discovery, below two temples of the Ggantija (3600 – 3200 BC) and the Tarxien (3150 – 2500 BC) phases, of a village which had been inhabited since the Ghar Dalam phase (5000 – 4300 BC). For the first time, stratified deposits of the known pre-temple sequence were found, together with two previously unknown phases. This helped to put Malta’s prehistoric sequence on a firm basis.

These two sites have been inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1992. Through the Med.Archeo.Sites project, they will be recorded in 3D. This will provide an invaluable record of these sites and their condition today.