History

The Catacombs of St Paul are situated in the zone of Ħal Bajjada in Rabat, in an area which is at times also called as Tad-Dlam . Like all the tombs, hypogea and catacombs present in the Rabat area, although nowadays within a heavily urbanized area, this extensive burial ground was in the 4th century AD just outside the main Roman (an certainly earlier) city of Melite which incorporated all of modern-day Mdina and a large part of Rabat up to St Rita Street and the Church of St Paul. This followed a Roman Law that prohibited burials within the city walls.
The site consists of two large areas normally called St Paul’s and SS Paul/Agatha, that are littered with more than 30 hypogea, of which the main complex, situated within the St Paul’s cluster, comprises a complex system o interconnected passages and tombs of an area of well over 2000 sqr metres.

The cluster gets its name from the myth that it was once connected with St Paul’s Grotto, the latter once also partly re-cut into a Palaeochristian hypogeum.  The origin of the main catacomb most probably started from a cluster of small tombs of the Punico-Roman type and hypogea which were eventually enlarged and joined haphazardly to create the complex system of passages and tombs used in the late Roman period. Although much smaller when compared to the catacombs of Rome and other large Roman centres, the catacombs of St Paul are a first class example of the Maltese underground architecture, which is the result of an indigenous development which was barely influenced by overseas traditions.

The entrance to the main complex of St Paul’s leads to two considerably large halls, adorned with pillars made to resemble Doric columns and painted plasters most of which have now disappeared. On keeping with what seems to have been a norm in most christen catacombs, these main halls are equipped with two circular tables set in a low platform with sloping sides which resemble the reclining couch (triclinium) present in Roman houses. In all cases present in the main complex and the numerous other Christian Hypogea of the site, both table and couch are hewn out in one piece form the living rock forming a single architectural unit within an apsed recess. Although various interpretations may be found, these triclinia, or Agape tables, were probably used to host commemorative meals during the annual festival of the dead, during which the rites of burials were renewed.

The complex was probably abandoned and to some extent despoiled during the Saracenic period, when burial customs changed dramatically to suit the practices of the new conquerors.  Part of the catacomb came again of service during the re-Christianisation of the Island somewhere around the 13th century, when an open space was re-cut and used as a Christian shrine decorated with murals.

Once abandoned again, the site fell in disrepair and the main entrance was blocked off, but access was still possible through an independent hypogeum in Diar Ħanżira (now Catacombs alley). It was from here that G.F. Abela probably accessed the site, which he described in his Della Descitione di Malta. The complex was however only cleared of debris in 1894 by A.A. Caruana, who cleared all the passages of rubble and surveyed the complex, including the areas appropriated by private landowners.