Bath Project

On Tuesday we went to see the Roman baths in Bath with my Uncle Peter and Aunt Angie. In Roman times the baths were a social part of life. Rich men would work in the morning and go to the baths in the evenings. I don’t have when the women went on the top of my head but, I think they went in the afternoon as well. I don’t know when the poorer men went, maybe they went in the afternoon, it seems to be the fashion.

These particular baths were a very sacred place because the water for the baths came from a spring. The Romans had no explanation for the spring water other than that it was a gift from the Gods.
There was a temple for Minerva, the Goddess of wisdom and healing, in the bath grounds. The Romans believed that Minerva had provided the spring for them for healing. Thousands of pilgrims came from afar and slept overnight in a certain room where the steam from the spring was circulated. They would tell the priest their dreams and the priest would interpret them and tell or give them the treatment they needed.

The reason that the baths were so well preserved is because after the Romans left the baths, the roof fell in. The next people to settle there didn’t ruin the actual baths. 

Later inhabitants didn’t know that the baths were underneath. They were only found a hundred years or so ago, when the houses on top were slowly and mysteriously filling with warm water. When the British did start to unveil the baths, it only took them three years. They then built the museum around them and replaced the pieces of wall that had been on the ground to where they should have been. 

These rings on the photo are not towel racks, they were used when the water flowed and was kept higher. The water filled to the height of the rings. This bath was called a kings bath. If you didn’t hold on to the rings, you would have been swept away with the rising water! Just above the rings we the stone turns a paler color is where the Victorians built up. One of the staff said that she had led a tour for a person older than the statues, which are now only 117 years old.

The Romans built the Baths and temple in between 65 and 75 AD. They rammed oak logs into the mud to direct the water into a stone reservoir which then fed into the baths. The reservoir was a holy place in the temple courtyard that no one swam in.

Fun Facts

This hot spring is the only one in Britain.

The Celts said this spring was a gift from their god of the springs Sulis. When the Romans came they thought she sounded like their Goddess, Minerva so they combined the two and worshipped Sulis Minerva.

The excavators found a hundred curses written on sheets of pewter and lead. These curses were sometimes rolled before they were thrown into the spring.