Roman Remains

SAN PAWL MILQI - ROMAN REMAINS

A small chapel on the hillside near Bumarrad dedicated to St Paul is the site of a Roman agricultural estate. Excavations carried out in the 1960s around the Chapel revealed a large estate dating from the 2nd/3rd centuries B.C. This had been destroyed by fire only to be reconstructed in the 5th century. The material collected on the site shows that its main activity was olive-oil extraction. An olive-pipper and other implements found here support this theory. The present chapel of St Paul dates from 1616, although it was built on the site of an earlier, 15th century church. San Pawl Milqi means `St Paul welcomed' and it is commonly believed that this was one of the first spots on the islands at which St Paul preached after his shipwreck on Malta in around A.D. 60. There is, however, no proof to show that the villa was indeed the house of Publius, the Roman's chief man on the islands whom St Paul is said to have converted to Christianity.