page_title: Melite (ancient city)
section_title: Remains
hierarchical_section_title: Melite (ancient city) / Remains
caption_attribution_description: English: Roman coving
context_page_description: Melite or Melita was an ancient city located on the site of present-day Mdina and Rabat, Malta. It started out as a Bronze Age settlement, which developed into a city called Maleth under the Phoenicians, and became the administrative centre of the island. The city fell to the Roman Republic in 218 BC, and it remained part of the Roman and later the Byzantine Empire until 870 AD, when it was captured and destroyed by the Aghlabids. The city was then rebuilt and renamed Medina, giving rise to the present name Mdina. It remained Malta's capital city until 1530.
  Only a few vestiges of the Punic-Roman city have survived. The most substantial are the ruins of the Domus Romana, in which a number of well-preserved mosaics and statues have been found. Sparse remains of other buildings and parts of the city walls have been excavated, but no visible remains of the city's numerous temples, churches and other public buildings survive.
context_section_description: According to Giovanni Francesco Abela, many architectural fragments from Melite were still visible in Mdina in the mid-17th century. From the late 17th to the 19th centuries, some marble columns and other remains from the temples of Apollo and Proserpina, and other buildings from Melite, were taken and sculpted into decorative elements for various houses and churches, including St. Paul's Cathedral in Mdina, St. Paul's Grotto in Rabat and the Franciscan Church of St Mary of Jesus, the Church of the Holy Souls, Auberge d'Italie and the Castellania in Valletta.
  Very few remains of Melite still exist today, and no significant ruins of the city's temples, basilicas or triumphal arches have survived. The most substantial remnant is the Domus Romana, a townhouse dating back to the 1st century BC and which was abandoned in the 2nd century AD. An Islamic cemetery was established on its ruins in the 11th century, and the site was discovered accidentally in 1881. Subsequent excavations revealed the foundations of the house, including well-preserved mosaics and statues. The remains of the domus are now open to the public as a museum run by Heritage Malta.
  The remains of a city gate or tower within the walls of Melite were discovered in Saqqajja in modern Rabat, about 5 m (16 ft) below the current street level. Parts of the city's 700 m (2,300 ft)-long ditch have survived under present-day St. Rita Street and the Church of St. Paul. The lower foundations of some Punic-Roman ramparts, consisting of rusticated ashlar blocks three courses high still in situ, were unearthed in 2010 in excavations near the Magazine Curtain in the western part of Mdina. The only other remains of the ancient walls are Punic-Roman masonry blocks which were reused in the medieval period. These include a wall around Greeks Gate, and some stones which were discovered in excavations at Inguanez Street and the Xara Palace.
  Sections of a Roman road, cisterns, canals and other archaeological remains were discovered beneath Palazzo Castelletti in Rabat. Some inscriptions, column capitals and other architectural remains from ancient Melite have also been found, and these are now preserved at the Domus Romana museum and the Cathedral Museum in Mdina, or in private collections. Parts of the podium of the Temple of Apollo were discovered in 2002. The remains of other ancient buildings, as well as pottery, coins or other artifacts from the Bronze Age or Punic-Roman period, are still occasionally discovered in excavations or during construction projects in Mdina or Rabat.
  A small statue of the Egyptian goddess Isis and an elaborate cornice were also found in Rabat.
  Many catacombs, together with a number of both Punic and Roman tombs, are found in Rabat. These were originally located just outside the walls of Melite. The catacombs of the period also include those of a Jewish community.
caption: Roman cornice found at Ġnien is-Sultan in Rabat, considered to be one of the most elaborate Roman remains in Malta
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