Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Malta: where's the drift?


















The megalithic temples of Malta stand as mysterious evidence of a long-vanished people. Some of the stones used in these temples weigh between forty and fifty tons. Some of the temples featured precise solar alignments, and others contain windows that may have had lunar or stellar alignments.

Graham Hancock devotes considerable space in his book Underworld to an examination of these mysterious sites. He notes that the kidney-shaped layout of many of the temples appears to have no precedent in other megalithic architecture, and that there is little if any evidence of earlier or simpler temples on Malta -- those incorporating massive stones or precise alignments appear "out of nowhere" archaeologically speaking, as the earliest ones we find on the island.

He notes lower ocean levels in the past may have meant that Malta was not always an island, and that later sea level rise might have isolated Malta. We have discussed in previous posts the fact that sea level rise accords very well with the hydroplate theory of Walt Brown.

However, the megalithic remains on Malta make an even more powerful testimony in favor of the hydroplate theory, and that is the fact that they remain aligned with the equinoxes and solstices even after multiple thousands of years.

The southernmost room of the temple at Mnajdra contains precise alignments with the equinox and the solstices. As illustrated in the diagram above, the sun's rising on the summer solstice will cast a beam into the chamber to align with the edge of a prominent southern stone on the back wall, while the sun's rising on the winter solstice will cast a beam into the chamber to align with the edge of a prominent northern stone on the back wall.

In the northern hemisphere, the sun rises and sets from its most northern point on the summer solstice (hence the beam's angle illuminates furthest south within the chamber on this day), and rises and sets from its most southern point on the winter solstice (hence the beam's angle illuminates the furthest north within the chamber on this day). On the equinoxes, when the sun rises due east, the beam will enter the chamber directly through the east-aligned entrance, as shown in the diagram.

Even conventional historians place the date of construction of Mnajdra in the period between 3200 BC and 2800 BC (Hancock presents some arguments that the megalithic temples on Malta could in fact be much older). Even if we work with a date of 2800 BC for Mnajdra, this would imply over 4,800 years of continental drift, according to prevailing theories of plate tectonics. The continuing solar alignments of the Mnajdra temple contradict the theory of plate tectonics.

On the other hand, the hydroplate theory asserts that the continental plates did in fact slide as part of the events surrounding a worldwide flood, but that they came to a grinding and often violent halt prior to the runoff of the floodwaters (the buckling and uplift of the continents being part of the mechanism that initiated the runoff of the floodwaters, as well as the violent downward movement of the Pacific floor).

Since the structures on Malta (and all other structures still existing on earth today) had to have been built after the sliding finished and the floodwaters drained into the ocean basins, we would not expect major continued drifting to go on (according to Brown's theory, earthquakes are caused by shifting, rather than drifting).

Thus the alignments of the temples on Malta (whether they were built in 2800 BC or at some earlier date) support the hydroplate theory, while providing further arguments against the plate tectonic theory.