Roman Bath - Athens - Greece - Signs of History on Waymarking.com

The sign reads:

MINISTRY OF CULTURE - THIRD EPHORATE OF ATHENS ANTIQUITIES
ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE OF ROMAN BATH This area where a ventilation shaft for the Athens METRO was to be sunk, was excavated and investigated with important results. The archaeological finds were preserved in their place and the ventilation shaft has moved southern. The district which, until its extension under Hadrian, lay outside the fortified city has been of importance ever SinCe:antiqiiity.:We.know om ancient sources and from earlier research in excavations - that this idyllic spot with the abundant water of the nearby llissos river and heavy v_egeta io as a place . in which many divinities were worshipped. It had been a human settlement from prehistoric times and became a burialgroiind from the Geometric period. . Once Athens had begun to expand during the reign of the emperor Hadrian, the temple of Olympian Zeus had been completed and the triu1nphal arch built in honour of the emperor-had been erected, the district was incorporated into the inner city and new 'Sanctuaries, Public and private buildings and baths were constructed in it. .
- . . The largest sector of the excavation included a very well preserved baths complex-balneum (1). It stands on a levelled site 21 m. wide between two long and high walls of fine construction in which many re-used architectural members have been incorporated. , , The baths continue both eastwards, inside the National Gardens, and westwards along Amahas Avenue and contain two hypocaust rooms, two praefurnia (heating spaces) and nine chambers. They were established after the Herulian raids 0 the t-nd of the and br early in the 4th c. A.D. and were ..- later destroyed, but repaired and enlarged during the 5th-6th c. A.D. , The larger of the hypocausts has fifteen hypocaust column supports, some of them cylindrical, rowne scjuare, and dividing walls (2). This hypocaust served the room with the hot baths (caldariu-m). Immediately to the north lies another oblong hypocaust, the floor of which was supported on seventeen re-used marble grave columns instead of hypocausts (3). This is the room with the warm baths (tepidariumy., Vie two furnaces are connected with the caldarium by underground vaulted passages (4). The hot air was circulated by means of three small .chambers. Nlertical Openings in the walls of the chambers provided ventilation and the heating of the walls themselves. . To this phase belongs a large well built rectangular tank, with a thick coat of hydraulic plaster inside and marble slabs outside, which supplied water through two openings to two marble basins found in situ. In the second phase, occurring in the 5th-6th c..A.D., the hypocaust rooms were repaired and brought back into use Four new chambers were built with tiled floors. One of these was constructed underground with a vaulted 'roof; in it a well was dug for drawing tip water. The interior is nicely finished with a tile and mortar floor; on its north wall are traces of a rather clumsy scene with human figures, fish, birds and crosses. These rough wall-paintings (5) point to its later use as a refuge or martyr's memorial in the early Christian years. In Byzantine times clay silos for storing cereals were sunk into the floors of the rooms of the bath-houses, some of which were rpstord in the south section of the archaeological site

Group that erected the marker: MINISTRY OF CULTURE URL of a web site with more information about the history mentioned on the sign: [Web Link] Address of where the marker is located. Approximate if necessary: Amalias Avenue ATHENS , GREECE

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