Gozo's temples, said by legend to be built by giants, predate most standing structures
On Gozo, Malta's quieter second island, stand the Ġgantija temples, whose Maltese name means belonging to the giants. They rank among the oldest free-standing structures anywhere, raised by descendants of farmers who crossed from Sicily around 5000 BC and first sheltered in caves near today's San Lawrenz.
Gozo has absorbed wave after wave of rulers. Carthaginians built a temple to Astarte there, Greek-inscribed coins suggest a Greek phase, and Rome probably annexed it around 218 BC; in the first century BC it struck bronze coins showing Astarte and the legend Gaulitōn. Its classical name, Gaulos, later Gaudos, passed into Arabic and survives in the modern Maltese Għawdex. Local tradition, backed by ancient writers such as Callimachus, even identifies it with an island in Homer.
The worst chapter came in July 1551, when Ottoman forces under Sinan Pasha and Dragut ravaged the island and carried off most of its 5,000 people as slaves to Libya. Charles V had handed Gozo and Malta to the Knights Hospitaller in 1530, and the Knights repopulated it with Maltese settlers between 1565 and 1580. Governed from Malta for almost all its history, Gozo enjoyed a brief spell of independence after its French garrison surrendered to Captain Alexander Ball on 28 October 1798, lasting until Valletta's garrison gave up on 4 September 1800. A Gozo Civic Council created in 1961 was abolished after a 1973 referendum in which 76.97 percent voted to scrap it; a Ministry of Gozo followed in 1987 and 14 local councils in 1993.
Around 39,287 Gozitans lived there in 2021, out of 443,227 Maltese. The island is rural and hilly, with hills even on its coat of arms, and it is prized by divers. Its famous Azure Window, a limestone arch at Dwejra, collapsed on March 8, 2017. The Rotunda of Xewkija holds 3,000 worshippers, enough for the whole village, beneath a dome larger than that of St Paul's Cathedral in London.
Ferries link Mġarr with Ċirkewwa in about 25 minutes, carrying some 1.1 million cars a year. A permanent link keeps resurfacing: a 1972 study judged a bridge possible but environmentally damaging, a later study priced one at €1 billion over four years of building, and planners have also proposed an 11 km tunnel beneath the seabed.
Source: Gozo
