Malta's Ġgantija temples are older than Egypt's pyramids, and locals said a giantess built them.

3600 BC · 2670 BC · apart: 930 years

In Gozo legend she ate nothing but broad beans and honey. The older temple is some 5,600 years old.

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The event

• Step Pyramid of Djoserc. 2670 BC · Saqqara. The architect Imhotep built a six-stepped pyramid at Saqqara for Pharaoh Djoser. It is the earliest monumental building made entirely of cut stone and the prototype for all later Egyptian pyramids.

Prehistory · 27th century BC

More amazing facts

• 3807 BC · 2560 BC A wooden causeway in England has been dated to the very year: 3807 or 3806 BC. Tree rings show the Sweet Track across a marsh was laid 1,250 years before the Great Pyramid, and was used for only about ten years.
• 3500 BC The world's oldest leather shoe is 5,500 years old — and roughly a European size 37.
• 3500 BC Przewalski's horse, 'the last wild horse', may not be wild at all. Genetics links it to the horses of Kazakhstan's Botai culture, kept by people 5,500 years ago, so it is probably feral.
• 3500 BC · 2560 BC People in Kazakhstan were drinking mare's milk almost a thousand years before the Great Pyramid.
• 3500 BC The first known zoo appeared in Egypt before the pharaohs.
• 3300 BC · 3200 BC Ötzi died in the Alps around 3300 BC, about when writing appeared in Sumerian Uruk.

All amazing facts (1058) →