A (Brief) Beginner’s Guide To Maltese History Part 5: The Byzantines

As y’all know we started this series a while ago to educate you about your heritage. We have already touched on subjects such as the Romans, the Phoenicians and some other guys we forgot about. Sit back and get to know the Byzantines. 

The Byzantines are practically like, Eastern Romans with some Greek thrown. They survived the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th Century and went on dragging their feet right up till 1453. Wowowow

Our new daddies came here around 533 AD or 535 AD — round about the same time North Africa was taken over by the Empire. There’s very few remains of the Byzantines on the island strangely, however we did receive some coverage from Greek writers. 

The Byzantines got busy building stuff in Mdina and a Roman Villa at San Pawl Milqi. This villa was originally built by the Romans but the Byzantines went all out with renovations — they used the cellar of this crib to produce oil and wine. 

Another area the Byzantines got busy giving make-overs to was Rabat, obviously. The catacombs of St. Agatha are chock-full of dazzling frescoes made by their hands. Of course like everyone else before them, the Byzantines went to Tas-Silġ. Honestly, Tas-Silġ was to our conquerors what the Sliema/St.Julians area is today to expats, bilfors. 

A bunch of coins were found in the Tas-Silġ area which were clearly like, Byzantine. So maybe someone lost his coin sack right around the area or whatever, do we care?

It’s evident that these guys pretty much turned the Tas-Silġ temples into a monastery for their priests or holy man, or women, we aren’t exactly sure.

Daddies found their way to Gozo too — the governor’s seal can be found in the archeological museum. The governor Theophylactos basically used this thing to officiate business and duties and stuff. This stamp dates to like, 750 to 850 AD.

We couldn’t find the stupid shit seal, but here’s a cool Byzantine statuette found in Għajnsielem.

Do you know anyone who would like this article? Tag them in the comments below

READ NEXT: Lines, Lines Everywhere: The Ultimate Guide To Malta’s Prolific Fort-Building History, Part 2