Malta’s history stretches from some of the world’s oldest stone monuments to the fortifications of the Knights of St John and beyond, making it an ideal destination for an immersive archaeological and historical tour. The islands’ position in the central Mediterranean has drawn successive cultures here for millennia, each leaving visible traces in temples, harbours, cities, and churches.
Our guide to historical Malta will help you to gain a deeper understanding of the island.
If you have any questions as you dive deeper into the history of Malta, feel free to contact us.
Long before classical antiquity, the first communities settled Malta and created distinctive ritual landscapes, building megalithic temple complexes from roughly the 4th millennium BCE.
These prehistoric inhabitants are often known as the Temple Builders, and are generally understood as settled farmers, although earlier phases may have included groups with mixed or transitional economies that resemble hunter‑gatherers moving into agriculture.
These megalithic sites include the temples at Ħaġar Qim, Mnajdra, and Tarxien on Malta and Ġgantija on Gozo, as well as the unparalleled Ħal Saflieni Hypogeum, now collectively recognised as UNESCO World Heritage for their sophistication and antiquity.
Natural and man‑made caves such as Għar Dalam preserve stratified deposits that document Malta’s environmental and human history deep into the past.
From the late 2nd millennium and early 1st millennium BCE, Malta became closely tied to wider Mediterranean maritime networks as Phoenician traders established harbours and settlements.
Under Carthaginian influence, the islands developed as a Punic outpost, with sanctuaries, necropoleis, and inscriptions marking a shift into the historical record.
After the Roman conquest in the 3rd century BCE, Malta formed part of the province of Sicily, with urban life focused on the inland town of Melite and coastal centres linked to trade routes.
Archaeological remains from this period include villas with mosaics, rock‑cut catacombs, and sanctuaries that illustrate everyday provincial life at the crossroads of Latin, Greek, and Semitic cultures.
Following late Roman and Byzantine phases, Malta experienced Arab rule from the 9th century, which reshaped settlement patterns, agriculture, and language, laying foundations that still echo in place‑names and in the Maltese language itself.
From the 11th century, the islands passed through Norman, Swabian, Angevin, and Aragonese control, now irreversibly tied to the wider Sicilian and Mediterranean world through trade and conquest.
In 1530, Malta was granted to the Knights Hospitaller, who transformed it into a heavily fortified Christian stronghold and famously resisted the Ottoman siege of 1565.
Their legacy survives in Valletta’s grid of bastions, palaces, and churches, a UNESCO‑listed cityscape where visitors can read layers of military, artistic, and religious history in the architecture.
After a brief French interlude at the end of the 18th century, Malta became a British possession, serving as a strategic naval base that shaped its harbors, dockyards, and administrative buildings.
The islands’ resilience during the Second World War, when Malta endured intense bombing yet remained a key Allied outpost, earned the population collective recognition with the award of the George Cross.
Malta gained independence in 1964 and is today a republic and member of the European Union, with a historic urban and rural landscape that continues to evolve.
For travelers, this long history offers an unusually dense concentration of sites—from prehistoric temples and underground cemeteries to baroque capitals and wartime installations—within a compact, easily explored archipelago.
Malta’s layered past is still visible today in its UNESCO‑listed megalithic temples, Neolithic settlements, and later castles and fortifications. The islands offer a rare chance to step directly into prehistoric sanctuaries, ancient harbour cities, and baroque strongholds within a compact landscape.
Explore these stories in more depth through the guides below. Or experience them firsthand on our immersive Malta Tour: Megalithic Temples and Maritime Fortresses, travelling in the company of expert local archaeologists and tour leaders who bring the island’s history to life.