Hello earthlings, welcome to Bugibba!
Those of you that know this series intimately, probably already know that sometimes
I like to tell sad stories about inanimate objects.
I don't know why, there’s just something funny about feeling sorry for a rock.
And the last time I told you all about a rock that I was feeling sorry for,
hundreds of you went online to make it the number one tourist attraction in all of Easter Island.
It's higher rated than the moai.
Which I think is hilarious.
And that said, I'm now in Northern Malta, again, in the town of Bugibba,
and I’m feeling sorry for a rock.
In Malta, there are dozens of unbelievably impressive megaliths dotting the landscape.
With some clocking in at over 5500 years old, they’ve been here longer
than virtually any other structures on the planet.
They were here when mammoths still walked the Earth.
And more than that, in a country with a population of under five hundred thousand,
these megaliths are drawing in nearly a million people a year.
They’re essentially the stone carving equivalent of Lin Manuel’s Hamilton.
So, naturally, I don’t really want to make a video on them.
Don’t get me wrong.
They're all wonderful complexes.
And I truly mean that.
They’re absolutely worth seeing and probably would have made a much more clickable video
than I'm about to tell.
But I just don’t find them rare.
They’re too well known.
And if I’m going to have to make clickbait to survive on this website
it might as well be about something you’ve never heard of.
So instead, I want to tell you about one of the temples that everybody ignores.
It’s called Bugibba Temple, and I like to think of it as sort of the Spinal Tap version of Maltese megaliths,
both in size and respect.
I’d say it’s probably among the most disrespected historical sites I’ve ever seen,
and not just on this island.
I really think that the way that they’ve presented this archaeology is a lesson in
how not to do things.
Because these stones, despite being a bit smaller than some of the others,
and having a bit less around them, are no less historically impressive
than the ones you may already know.
At least, in most respects.
It has every bit as much pedigree as the big boys.
It too was built five thousand years ago by the same culture who would have constructed Ggantija.
It has a trilithon and aims toward the sun.
The history is here, too.
There just isn’t as much of it.
It just isn't as pretty.
Yet, despite the fact that it’s about as central to Malta’s tourist centre as you can get,
when you come here, there's virtually nobody else here.
In fact, since we started filming this, not a single other person has arrived.
Despite the fact, that there are hundreds of hotel rooms looking down on this, hell,
you can see it from the pool.
You won't find hundreds of people here.
Because we don’t truly see tourist sites for the history, do we?
We see them because they’re tourists sites.
Because they’re in the brochure.
Because they're popular.
And if we don't present them in the right way, they might as well not exist.
Bugibba Temple has been presented in the wrong way.
They built a hotel around it.
And not a fancy one, either.
Just a hotel.
A mid-range.
An upscale mid-range but a mid-range hotel.
A place where college age kids come to party.
Most people who pass by it aren’t even aware that it’s history.
It feels more like a kitschy tourist town’s poorly built replica of a thing then the actual thing itself.
Even in the online reviews, which are kind in their 3.5,
you see a repeated pattern of people questioning if these stones are real.
And I don’t blame them.
They certainly don't feel real.
If this were one of those great, massively respected megaliths that the country takes so seriously,
then why would it be so haphazardly thrown in the backyard of a mid-range hotel.
This isn’t a fancy place.
They don’t deserve this.
When we visited here the first time to decide if we could film the speaking bits,
the drunks in the pool were so loud that we couldn't even hear each other talk.
And it’s not like I blame them.
It's a hotel in a tourist town, it’s not a place of reverence.
They’re just here to have fun.
But I think that the temple deserves better.
I know its just another couple of inanimate rocks piled on top of each other,
and there’s plenty more where that came from, but there’s a certain principle to it.
This is an important thing.
It isn’t being treated importantly, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t important.
Someday, we may realize the value here and be appalled at how little attention we paid.
Or, someday we may bulldoze it so they can extend the jacuzzi.
Honestly I don’t know.
But just because there's some bigger, badder, better temple down the way,
doesn’t mean that Buggiba doesn’t deserve a little love too.
Because after all, if our bodies were temples, which one would yours be?
This is Rare Earth.