Roman Baths: August 6-10

Roman Baths 1

During this week, the RB 1 team focused on the "western southern space" south of the former "Kaisersaal" (see Roman Baths: July 10-August 3, 2006). The discovery of what last week was assumed to be a praefurnium (a firing place for heating the building or the water) was confirmed. This is located a bit south of the collapsed westernmost tub of the Kaisersaal and the latters' curtain wall, once this room had been transformed into caldarium 2 (hot water bath) shortly before or after ca. A.D. 400. The internal dimensions of this firing place could be established at ca. 3.22 m (interior) for the long sides (East-West), whereas the small sides on the West and East had lengths of 1.16 and 0.92 m, respectively (there is a ca. 0.25 m wide opening here giving access to the interior). Although the floor level has not been reached yet, at approximately 0.70 m below the actual height of the praefurnium's walls, the onset of a vaulted ceiling made of tuff blocks and brick is visible on all walls. Along the east side, a tuff block is barring all but the vault's upper part, possible providing exhaust or fuel entry facilities. The function of the small structure attached to central part of the north wall, located between the tub in the Kaisersaal and the praefurnium is not yet clear. At the moment, the rubble inside this small structure is still filled with rubble so that an opening towards the firing place remains uncertain. The praefurnium itself is also filled with rubble, but near the walls, concentrations of charcoal were found and sampled. Its location, about floor level, suggests the firing place most likely heated metal water containers on top of it, which were removed at a later date.

To the west of the praefurnium, we found another remarkable feature when we excavated a freestanding wall with plaster applied to all four faces. This wall with an East-West direction (0.98 to 1.07 m long; 0.27 m wide) seemed devoid of proper foundations, although it rested partially on a perpendicular row of North-South aligned limestone blocks (1.31 by 0.38/0.26 m) clearly aligned with the furnace walls and forming the border of a small, mortared "platform" in between. Along the fireplace's west wall, there is a small 0.12 m wide gulley with a floor made of tiles (L.: 0.89 m). The mortared platform continues not only southwards but also eastwards along the praefurnium's south wall. Close to that wall, at the location where a heavy block was extracted, the floor was cracked and dented, revealing that this platform actually is composed of a thick layer of pinkish mortar lying on top of a hypocaust floor (floor supported by terra-cotta piers between which hot air circulated) formed by terracotta slabs of 1 by 1 m. The platform thus was nothing else than the substratum of the floor covering the hypocaust The excavations by team RB 2 (see below) indicated that this substratum originally carried white marble slabs Through the holes and cracks in the latter, it became visible that the fire place's walls and the limestone blocks were provided with a foundation in the hypocaust section (unlike the plaster wall mentioned earlier). The space in between the top and bottom parts of the hypocaust system was partially filled with rubble.

From the praefurnium fill, not a lot of finds were recovered, although some architectural fragments and wall veneer fragments were found again. The sectors immediately south of the north wall of the room yielded more finds, with--apart from architectural fragments and wall veneer--fifth-sixth century ceramics, glass (among which an early Byzantine bracelet fragment in blue glass), several nails and some rare bones, all too mixed to have any dating value.

Roman Baths 2

This weekend, Johan Claeys (K.U. Leuven) came over to replace Tijl Vereenooghe as supervisor of the Roman Baths 2 team and to fulfill the job he has been doing during the previous five years. Work continued in the "eastern southern room" of the Baths.

During the final days of this week, it became finally clear that one is not dealing here with simple working spaces, as was already suggested by the many high-quality stones or wall veneer previously found in this area (see Roman Baths: July 10-August 3, 2006), as once again a room with a heated floor was exposed, while reaching the floor level in several sectors. Yet, the latter was in a poor condition, especially in the central and southern part of the room, where the brick-made rounded piers supporting the hollow hypocaust (heated floor) below the floor were completely smashed by the ceilings and walls, which fell on them inside the building instead of to the south of it, as was the case in most of the adjoining room (RB 1). This confirms the picture visible from the west, that the south side of the Roman Baths had been most damaged of all by the earthquake of the 640s. This is a situation present throughout the city, whereby during this earthquake all buildings seem to have collapsed in a south(-eastward) direction

View of the southwest corner of the bath complex, clearly shows how much the southern rooms were affected by the earthquake

Very important was the emergence of the remains of a well-preserved heated bathtub. Its limestone balustrade is similar, although provided with somewhat richer profiles, than the balustrades encountered in frigidarium 2 and caldarium 2. Some parts of the east side of this balustrade appear to be missing or will be encountered deeper in the destruction layers. This tub rests on top of a platform made of large ashlars accessible by two well-preserved steps.

This basin was built against the west wall of the "southeastern southern space." Halfway toward the west wall of this heated room, undoubtedly one of the original caldaria (hot water rooms), there seems to have been an opening towards the southwestern room excavated by team RB 1. At a later date, perhaps when the southwestern room was transformed into a heating room, this brick west wall was prolonged another 1.5 meters toward the south by using rough limestone blocks and the opening between the two made smaller. The wall is about 1 m wide and has a hypocaust system running along its eastern edge (the added part not included). Along its western side, inside the southwest room, some of the original white marble floor slabs are still preserved in situ, standing in front of the hollow heated wall, although severely damaged under the weight of the collapse. A vertical water channel inside the west wall apparently transported water from the roof to the floor level in the rooms east and west of it, possibly for cleaning it. A comparable facility was encountered in between frigidarium 2 (cold water bath) and the heated corridor leading to the caldarium 2, as excavated in 2003-2004.