Long before the world was as we know it, there existed a vast and ancient land — a land where Malta now lies, but greater, grander, and steeped in forgotten power. It was a realm where earth and spirit danced as one, a cradle of secrets whispered by stone and sea.

The legends say it was no ordinary land. Its people, mighty and wise, carved great temples from living rock and worshipped sacred bulls whose roars echoed across golden plains. Behemoth elephants roamed the valleys, their bones later entombed in the earth, and far above them, the stars charted destinies lost to time.

To some, these are mere stories, yet they mirror the ancient tale of Atlantis — the fabled city of splendour and sorrow spoken of by Plato. Too many echoes remain to be dismissed. The temples, the sacred beasts, the shattered bones of giants — they linger still, hinting that Malta may be the last breath of the sunken world itself.

In those forgotten days, colossal “land-ships” sailed not the seas but the earth itself, gliding on wheels through deep-cut channels etched into the limestone. Their paths, now known as cart ruts, crisscross the islands like ghostly veins. Seek them at Clapham Junction, at Mensija, or Ta’ Ċenċ, where twin grooves still mark the ground — silent witnesses to an age when the land itself was alive.

Some of these ancient tracks race boldly to the edge of towering cliffs, then vanish — as if swallowed by the hungry sea. Once, they stretched across the great southern plain, linking the sacred island of Filfla to the vast lands beyond. But the world was not yet at peace. A cataclysm came — fierce and sudden — sundering the land, shattering it into islands, and pulling the lost heart of the world into the dark below.

Across the waters in Gozo, a different song is sung — of a shining city near Għarb, where gold paved the streets and silver gleamed from every doorway. Yet wealth breeds pride, and pride draws ruin. The earth shook with fury, and the golden city was torn from the living world, swallowed whole by the hungry ground. Only whispers remain — golden bulls with ruby eyes, fragments of ancient jewellery — scattered across the fields of ix-Xaqqufita like broken dreams.

This was a land of temple-builders and giants, of monstrous bears, thunderous camels, and oxen wrought of purest gold — creatures from the oldest bestiaries, beings who once walked freely beneath the stars.

The land did not die. It fell, drawn into the deep world beneath our feet, its wonders hidden, its songs silenced — but not forever.

Somewhere, in the breath between stone and sea, it still waits.

And perhaps, when the time is right, the lost world will rise again.