The Borġ l-Imramma site is a major building of the temple period. It is located southeast of the Ta' Ċenċ plateau. Near the structure, cart ruts and a

dolmen A dolmen, () or portal tomb, is a type of single-chamber Megalith#Tombs, megalithic tomb, usually consisting of two or more upright megaliths supporting a large flat horizontal capstone or "table". Most date from the Late Neolithic period (4000 ...

can also be observed.

Structure

The temple shares some of the characteristics of the usual Maltese Megalithic temple such as the

Ħaġar Qim Ħaġar Qim (; "Standing/Worshipping Stones") is a megalithic temple complex found on the Mediterranean island of Malta, dating from the Ġgantija phase (3600–3200 BC). The Megalithic Temples of Malta are among the most ancient religio ...

Ġgantija Ġgantija (; "place of giants") is a megalithic temple complex from the Neolithic era (–2500 BC), on the List of islands in the Mediterranean, Mediterranean island of Gozo in Malta. The Ġgantija temples are the earliest of the Megalithic Temp ...

temples. This design usually includes a large, roughly circular courtyard, about across. This courtyard was presumably open to the sky. Clustered on its north, west and south sides are a number of small, again nearly circular chambers. An entrance passage for the courtyard is on the northwest wall. This passage is made from large, squared stones. This entrance's rocks are the strongest in structural integrity ever found in Malta. The bottom part has not yet been excavated but large portions of

chert Chert () is a hard, fine-grained sedimentary rock composed of microcrystalline or cryptocrystalline quartz, the mineral form of silicon dioxide (SiO2). Chert is characteristically of biological origin, but may also occur inorganically as a prec ...

can be seen. The structure is believed to date back around 4100 to 3000 BCE.

Later use

It is also speculated that the

Phoenicia Phoenicians were an Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples, ancient Semitic group of people who lived in the Phoenician city-states along a coastal strip in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily modern Lebanon and the Syria, Syrian ...

ns used the temple for unknown purposes.

Etymology

# Borġ - Widely known as the expression of ''An amount of rocks placed on top of each other." # Imramma - A colloquial type of rodent, usually spoken as "Ġurdien tal-Imramma"

References

{{reflist Buildings and structures completed in the 4th millennium BC Megalithic Temples of Malta Sannat Phoenician temples