Konrad Mizzi has inadvertently revealed he is more than 5,000 years old, after speaking about his childhood memories of watching Ħaġar Qim being built.
The Tourism Minister, previously thought be to 41, was taking part in a promotional interview about the megalithic temples for the Malta Tourism Authority.
“This was back in 3600 BC, when I was only 10 years old, but I remember it like it was yesterday,” Mizzi said.
“My father was a shepherd in the village that is now Qrendi. We used to take the sheep to graze in a field near the site that would eventually become the temple complex.
“While dad tended the flock, I would watch in awe as teams of men pulled huge limestone blocks along the ground on rollers, before using hi-tech (well it was at the time!) machinery to defy gravity and put them upright.
“As the building started to take shape and engravers chiseled strange patterns onto the facade, I realised this wasn’t going to be another grain store. This was going to be a sacred place, a place where you could speak to the gods.
“One day my mum came to the field to bring us some food, and a sculptor saw her and said she’d make a great fertility symbol, so he started carving her likeness out of stone. She didn’t like the end result though. Said it made her look fat, but that’s women for you.”
However, Mizzi’s wonder quickly turned to sadness, after he was ordered to hand over his favourite sheep to be sacrificed during the temple’s opening ceremony.
“I still miss Fluffy,” he said as tears welled up in his eyes. “But the high priest said that if we didn’t kill him the village would have a bad harvest. If only people had thought of selling passports to appease the gods, like we do now. Fluffy might have lived.”
Mizzi added that during the ceremony, the temple’s newly appointed oracle gave him a cryptic message about his future.
“She told me, ‘Your shell will not remain at the bottom of the sea. 17 Black will see the light.’ I had no idea what she meant, but I could feel my human rights being breached so I ran home crying.”
The minister also mentioned other memories he had, including watching Count Roger I of Sicily set foot on the island in 1081, as well as his time as La Vallette’s squire during the Great Siege of 1565.
“It was from Jean that I learned the arts of sword fighting and creative accounting,” he said.
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