Cart Ruts
Although Malta is home to the highest concentration of cart ruts in the world, their origin and function is still greatly unknown.
Cart ruts are parallel tracks that run through rock and are typically about 140cm wide – the width of a small vehicle or cart. Malta has these strange tracks in over 150 different locations. These ruts are formed in rock and in most cases, very hard rock. There is evidence to suggest that the deep grooves in the rock are at least 2700 years old as some of the tracks run through Punic tombs that date back at least that long ago and could not have been there when the tracks were made.
The grooves in the limestone are usually in pairs but they differ greatly. Some are very deep and narrow while others are wide and flat. Some are so deep that it seems impossible that any vehicle – sled or wheeled – could be dragged along them. There are sometimes very different ruts in the same location, pointing to the possibly of different uses for these ruts.
The width between the parallel ruts remain fairly consistent, similar to modern day railway tracks. They run in lines, around curves, up and down hills and even switch back and forth on steeper slopes in parallel with modern roads. Strangely, some of the cart ruts run straight off the edges of ridges and cliffs.
The ruts don’t lead to any obvious destination. Some of the ruts look random and carelessly bumpy while others look intentionally carved. Its mystery remains unsolved to this day.
It is also still a mystery who made the cart-ruts and how. Was it the Maltese Temple Builders, Romans, Phoenicians, Malta’s Bronze Age people or other original Maltese civilisation and people? Were they made by vehicles like wooden sleds or wheeled carts? Are they natural? Were they created for or by aliens/UFO’s? There are no records or mythology left by those who were around when these meandering paired tracks were created. There are lots of ideas of what they were used for – irrigation, paths or roads, chariot racing, energy or routes for UFO’s etc.
Despite many decades of archaeological studies, the questions still remain unanswered. The most popular area in Malta for cart ruts is Clapham Junction, or Misrah Għar il-Kbir, in Maltese. Here there are a high number of ruts: multiple pairs beside each other which even intersect each other in crazy spaghetti junctions.
Modern man can only wonder what the megalithic structures and Cart Tracks were built for and used for. The discussion on Malta’s cart ruts was recorded in the 17th century and may continue for many centuries more.