Bazilika e Shën Mëhillit

Bazilika e Shën Mëhillit is a former early Christian basilica dedicated to Saint Michael, on Arapaj’s southern edge near Durrës. Its ruins are a Cultural Monument of Albania.

The church dates from the fifth or sixth century and remained in use until the eleventh century. Its eastward orientation remains visible in the surviving foundations. A three-lobed plan gave the nave and both aisles semicircular apses at their eastern ends. The plan marks a basilica built for a saint.

A southern burial chamber contained the remains of a man and a woman beneath a richly coloured polychrome mosaic. The mosaic remains covered by gravel for conservation. Its scenes show a seated woman and man with dogs, horses, goats and sheep, beside a two-handled crater pouring wine. A stag and a cow approach the streams.

Excavations also found carved stone columns and fragments of stone and bronze statues within the former church. The ruins resurfaced through late twentieth-century archaeological work. The site preserves evidence of Christian and Byzantine culture in the Durrës region. Its foundations, burial chamber and distinctive plan give the former basilica a clear architectural identity.