now referred to as Ħaġar Qim North, which is one of the smallest temples lying neglected behind the main temple, inaccessible to visitors. We can still see today that it once overlooked the sea in a direction slightly west of south, with an azimuth of 186 degrees. According to the date deduced from the precession of Sirius,xii it was built in around 9,150 BC.

Ħaġar Qim North, the oldest temple according to the astronomical dating of Sirius

Ħaġar Qim North had sea view before main temple was built

Now the denouement is easy. If we look once again at the diagram (see above), we will immediately see that the shift in temple azimuths follows from the precessional movement of Sirius. We also see that its rising points on the horizon inthe east and its setting points in the west equally received the interest of the Stone Age observers. And the clusters of the eighteen temple axes represented in the diagram show a fairly equal distribution in time, ranging from the first, which was built in around 9,150 BC to the very last, built in 4,250 BC.xiii

Thus we have established that the Maltese temple period lasted nearly five thousand years. Within this timeframe, they could have built a temple every two centuries according to both the rising and setting of the star. This is precisely the time at which Sirius would have moved out of the line of sight of an existing temple, and another temple would be needed, explaining the shift in temple orientations most satisfactorily.

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