“Giants of the Mediterranean” was one of the topics on Ancient Aliens this afternoon.
As well as in many other places in the world, great civilizations arose around the Mediterranean Sea.
There are stories of giants all over the world. In the 7th Century BC, Hesiod (among others) wrote about one-eyed giants, the Cyclopes. They were builders, building great structures in stone.
Thousands of stone structures in the Mediterranean were built with stones far too heavy for normal humans to lift.
In Malta, some of the biggest megalithic sites are over a thousand years older than the pyramids. The temple Ggantija – before the discovery of Gobekli Tepe – was the oldest known free-standing temple. Ggantija means “place of the giants.”
In Qrendi, Malta, there is a trefoil complex of temples which archaeologists date to around 3600 BC – a thousand years earlier than the Egyptian pyramids. Regular human people could not have lifted the stones to build them. Other estimates, based on astrological alignments, date them to 10,200 BC. Legend says that the knowledge of building was brought there by giants, who were aliens.
On Sardinia, Italy, among rugged mountains, are mysterious, ancient stone structures called nuraghe. Apparently, there are between 7,000 to 20,000 of these nuraghe towers. No one knows how they were built; building them came to a halt around 200 AD.
Some 800 tombs on Sardinia appear to have been built for giants. Giants from 9 to 12 feet tall would have been able to fit in the larger tombs.
In the museum in Cagliari, Sardinia, are featured very tall stone giants – eight feet tall. Over 40 of these stone statues have been found and are on display. They have long heads and very unusual features.
Thirty stone menhirs across the island of Sardina – large single stones — often have carvings on them that appear to depict figures flying down from the sky.
Not too far away, the ancient Sumerians (in modern Iraq) also wrote about large beings, the Anunnaki – with bird heads and with wings – always depicted as enormous beings.
There is much more, of course, all over the world — legends about giants on every continent – but this will do for the moment.
Yes, I know that giants may not seem very plausible or very relevant to the times in which we live.
But there is very much that is intriguing and so little known about the ancient past. We know so little about the past, and yet we are so quick to make pronouncements about what is true and what isn’t – as if we knew for certain – which we don’t.
What we do know is that there were many species of human before the current one became dominant.
You’re right, Laura. There were species that were giants and little people like hobbits, as well as Neanderthals and Denisovans – and many others over hundreds of thousands of years.