Persons wanting to suggest the existence of a pagan temple on the citadel site will support the latter supposition. However the lack of this stone reused in other parts of the citadel suggests the stone was brought to the citadel from another location, and the fire temple is the obvious choice. His excavations revealed that the palace was planned around a 59 metre long corridor running east-west, had several large halls, many ancillary rooms, and was at least two stories high in parts. It had an underground cistern, and a bath complex with seven rooms and hypocaust heating. The palace was probably abandoned by the end of the 15th century.
Today there are the visible ruins of three churches within the citadel.
This lies within the palace enclosure and was a small single-naved church, with a barrel vaulted ceiling under a steeply pitched saddle roof. The interior had a semicircular apse and was strongly articulated with substantial, heavily moulded, pilasters. Much of the decoration within suggests a pre-Arab date, perhaps the early 7th century. The apse was framed with slender engaged columns inscribed with a zigzag pattern. There are no inscriptions recorded, and the name of the church is a 19th century invention.