San Pawl Milqi

The site is traditionally claimed to have been the place where Publius, the Protos of the island, welcomed and hosted St Paul on the latter’s sojourn to the island in c. A.D. 60; hence, the site’s toponym San Pawl Milqi. On-site excavations by the Missione Archeologica Italiana a Malta between 1963 and 1968 found that the earliest human presence on the site could be dated to the prehistoric Żebbuġ phase (4,100-3,700 BC) as shown by discovered burials datable to that phase. Evidence for human presence during the Bronze Age’s Borġ in-Nadur phase (1,500-700 BC) is also attested but it remains unclear whether people in this epoch actually used the site or whether the material discovered found its way to San Pawl Milqi from a site up the hill. The first traces of a farm complex with domestic quarters appear in the 3rd century B.C., betraying Punic cultural influence. The farm complex underwent a series of changes throughout its centuries-long history, including those caused by a great fire.