St Paul's Catacombs in Rabat: an underground Roman world

Christianity underground: four centuries before Malta became famous

Rabat is the town immediately outside the walls of Mdina, and the two are historically inseparable — Rabat was the outer settlement of the same ridge-top community that the Phoenicians, Romans, Arabs, and Normans each fortified in turn. While Mdina was the fortress, Rabat was the suburb, and it was in Rabat’s soft limestone bedrock that Malta’s early Christian community cut an extraordinary network of underground burial chambers from approximately the 4th through 8th centuries CE.

St Paul’s Catacombs are the largest and most significant of these underground complexes. The name connects to the Maltese tradition — documented in the Acts of the Apostles — that St Paul was shipwrecked on Malta in approximately 60 CE during his voyage to Rome and spent three months on the island. Whether the catacombs have any direct connection to Paul is historically uncertain (the earliest burials here are from 300 years after his visit), but the tradition shapes how Maltese culture understands this site.

What is unambiguous is that the catacombs represent an extraordinary survival: a well-preserved, extensive, and legible record of how Malta’s early Christian and Jewish communities organised their dead, their ritual practices, and their underground space over several centuries.

What you see inside

The Heritage Malta site covers two main areas: the catacomb network itself and, at surface level, the Domus Romana museum (the remains of a Roman townhouse). A combined ticket covers both.

Rabat: St. Paul's Catacombs & the Domvs Romana Combo Ticket

The catacomb network

The catacombs consist of approximately 2,400 square metres of underground chambers and passages on two levels, cut from the Globigerina limestone that underlies most of Malta’s inhabited areas. The catacombs are not a single unified space — they are a series of family burial complexes, each accessed from a separate surface entrance, that over centuries grew into an interconnected network.

The agape tables: the most visually distinctive feature of the St Paul’s Catacombs and the most unusual element in any Mediterranean catacomb. Agape (love feast) tables are circular or semi-circular raised stone platforms cut from the living rock in the larger chambers, surrounded by bench seating also cut from the rock. The early Christian community gathered at these tables above the family tombs for ritual meals commemorating the dead — a practice that combines Roman funerary custom with specifically Christian meaning.

Rabat’s agape tables are the most extensive collection outside Rome and are among the best-preserved examples anywhere in the world. Walking around one of the large table-and-bench configurations, understanding that this was a social space where living people sat and ate alongside the graves of their family members, gives the catacombs a human dimension that bare tomb passages do not.

The individual burial types: the catacombs contain multiple types of burial arrangement:

• Loculi: simple rectangular niches cut horizontally into the walls, sealed with stone slabs.
• Arcosolium burials: larger, more prestigious, carved under arched recesses in the wall — these belonged to families of higher status.
• Window tombs: chambers cut into the floor with a small opening, sealed with carved slabs.
• Children’s tombs: identifiably smaller loculi concentrated in specific areas of the complex.

Jewish section: a significant portion of the catacomb network shows Jewish rather than Christian iconography — menorahs, shofars (ram’s horns), and specifically Jewish inscriptions. The existence of this material alongside the Christian burials indicates that Rabat’s Roman-period population included a Jewish community that used the same landscape and sometimes the same catacomb infrastructure for their own burials. The two communities buried in close proximity — sharing the underground space, possibly the surface land, while maintaining distinct ritual identities.

The decorations: the catacombs at Rabat have limited painted decoration compared to the Roman catacombs, but what survives includes carved and incised patterns on tomb entrances — geometric designs, Christian symbols (the Chi-Rho, the fish), and occasional figurative elements. Some of the arcosolium arches retain coloured plaster fragments.

The Domus Romana

At surface level, immediately adjacent to the catacomb entrance, the Domus Romana museum preserves the remains of a substantial Roman townhouse from approximately the 1st century BCE. The house was discovered in 1881 during excavations and the significant find was the polychrome floor mosaics — geometric patterns and naturalistic scenes in coloured tessera that are among the finest Roman mosaics surviving in Malta.

The mosaics include a particularly well-preserved emblema (central decorative panel) showing a bird with coloured plumage, surrounded by geometric borders. The quality of the work indicates a wealthy household with access to skilled craftsmen — almost certainly the same socioeconomic class as the individuals who later received the arcosolium burials in the catacombs below.

The museum also displays finds from Rabat area excavations: pottery, oil lamps, coins, jewellery, and building fragments that document Roman-period life in the settlement outside Mdina’s walls.

St Agatha’s Catacombs

Approximately 200 metres from St Paul’s Catacombs, the smaller St Agatha’s Catacombs are a separate Heritage Malta site with a different character. St Agatha is associated by tradition with a period of refuge in Malta (the saint fled here from Sicily in the 3rd century CE). The chapel and catacombs here are smaller, older in part, and decorated with frescoes — unusual for Maltese catacombs — showing saints, angels, and Byzantine-influenced iconography from the medieval period, overlaid on earlier Roman catacomb structures.

St Agatha’s is a separate ticket and a shorter visit (30-40 minutes). For visitors with time and interest in early Christian art, the combination with St Paul’s makes a complete morning.

Practical information

Combined ticket (St Paul’s Catacombs + Domus Romana): approximately 12-15 EUR adults (2026 Heritage Malta prices). Check current prices on the Heritage Malta website.

Hours: 09:00-17:00. Verify for public holidays. The catacombs are always guided — entry is with timed groups, and you cannot explore entirely independently.

Getting there: Rabat is directly adjacent to Mdina, served by buses from Valletta (routes 51, 52, 53) and other points. The catacombs entrance is approximately 500 metres from the Mdina main gate, walking through Rabat’s residential streets. Journey from Valletta by bus: 35-40 minutes.

Temperature: the catacombs maintain a constant temperature of approximately 18-20°C. A light layer is advisable in summer.

Photography: permitted in most areas. Flash is discouraged in the more fragile painted areas.

Combining Rabat with Mdina

The most natural Rabat combination is with Mdina:

• Morning in Mdina: Cathedral, Cathedral Museum, Knights of Malta Museum, Mdina Experience, bastions. See the Mdina half-day guide.
• Afternoon in Rabat: St Paul’s Catacombs, Domus Romana, (optionally) St Agatha’s Catacombs.

This full programme takes 5-6 hours and covers most of what Rabat and Mdina offer. Lunch in Rabat (the parish square restaurants are less tourist-priced than Mdina’s options) works well as the transition between the two.

For the guided combination of Mdina and Rabat including catacombs, the guided walking tour covering both is a practical option:

Malta: Mdina and Rabat Walking Tour with Catacombs

For the wider inland Malta day that also takes in Dingli Cliffs, the hidden Malta coastal tour offers a longer circuit:

Hidden Malta: From Coastal Wonders to the Silent City

The 3-day Malta itinerary places the Mdina and Rabat combination on Day 2 as part of a structured inland day. The 5-day Malta itinerary gives it more breathing room.

Historical context: Malta and early Christianity

Malta’s Christian tradition claims apostolic origin — the tradition that St Paul was shipwrecked here (Acts 27-28) and spent three months on the island, healing the island’s leading citizen Publius and establishing the faith, is central to Maltese religious identity. Whether historically verifiable or not, the tradition has shaped Maltese culture continuously for two millennia.

The catacombs provide material evidence not for Paul’s visit (the burials here are 300 years later) but for the community that grew from it: a substantial early Christian and Jewish population in Roman Malta that had the resources, the organisation, and the community life to create an extensive underground burial and ritual complex. By the 4th century CE, Christianity in Malta was established enough to produce this kind of communal infrastructure.

The site’s layered history — Roman funeral custom, Jewish and Christian parallel practices, medieval reuse and overlay — is a condensed version of Malta’s broader history of overlapping civilisations, each making use of what came before.

Frequently asked questions about St Paul’s Catacombs

What is an agape table?

An agape (Greek: love, charitable love) table in the context of early Christian catacombs is a stone table cut from the rock in a burial chamber, used for ritual meals in memoriam of the dead. The practice combines Roman funerary custom (commemorative meals at tombs were a standard practice) with specifically Christian theological meaning (the agape meal as a form of communal worship). The Rabat catacombs have the most extensive collection of agape tables outside Rome.

Are St Paul’s Catacombs the same as the Hypogeum?

No — they are completely different sites from completely different periods. The Hypogeum (Ħal Saflieni Hypogeum, Paola) is a prehistoric underground temple and necropolis from approximately 3600-2500 BCE. St Paul’s Catacombs are early Christian burial chambers from approximately the 4th-8th centuries CE. Both are underground, both are Heritage Malta sites, but they are separated by over 3,500 years.

Can you visit the catacombs without a guide?

The Heritage Malta visit to St Paul’s Catacombs is guided — you follow a Heritage Malta guide through the main chambers and passages. Independent exploration is not possible. The guide provides interpretation that significantly enhances the experience — the burial types and agape tables require explanation to be properly understood.

Are the catacombs suitable for claustrophobic visitors?

The main chambers are relatively spacious, but the connecting passages in some sections are low-ceilinged and narrow. Visitors with significant claustrophobia should consider whether this is the right site for them. The Domus Romana (at surface level) is entirely open.

Is the Domus Romana included in the catacombs ticket?

Yes — the combined ticket (St Paul’s Catacombs + Domus Romana) covers both sites. The Domus Romana is at surface level adjacent to the catacomb entrance. Most tours of the Heritage Malta site include both as a package.

What is the connection between St Paul and Malta?

The Acts of the Apostles (chapter 27-28) describes Paul’s shipwreck on an island called Melite during a voyage from Caesarea to Rome. The island is identified with Malta by the subsequent tradition, though some scholars have proposed Mljet (Croatia) as an alternative. The dominant academic and ecclesiastical view identifies Malta as the correct site. Whether or not the identification is historically accurate, Paul’s shipwreck in Malta is foundational to Maltese Christian identity and is commemorated throughout the island’s religious and cultural life.

Last reviewed: 2026-04-20