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June 2023

Vol. 11, No. 6

Baths of the Roman and Byzantine Southern Levant: Roman Ideas and Local Interpretations

By Arleta Kowalewska and Craig A. Harvey

 

Bathhouses are one of the most iconic remains associated with the Roman world, easily recognized by their distinctive double floor (called “hypocaust”, meaning “place heated from below”) and wall heating system. Public bathing in warm-water baths was one of the pillars of the Roman culture — these bathhouses provided not only a variety of hygienic services, but also a space for socializing and entertainment. As Roman hegemony spread to the Near East starting in the 1st century BCE, so too did the practice of Roman bathing. Bathhouses became a ubiquitous feature of the provincial landscape, being built as public or private facilities in cities, towns, villages, road stations, and military enclosures (fig. 1).

Fig. 1: The ruins of the 2nd to 4th century CE Southern Bathhouse at Hippos and the view towards the Sea of Galilee (credit: Michael Eisenberg).
Fig. 1: The ruins of the 2nd to 4th century CE Southern Bathhouse at Hippos and the view towards the Sea of Galilee (credit: Michael Eisenberg).

Written sources, such as those by Roman authors like Marital and Seneca, provide vivid depictions of activities that took place in these facilities. Similarly, literary works from the East, like the Mishnah or the Panarion of Epiphanius, provide us with frequently quoted and variously interpreted excerpts on what the different parts of the local society in the Roman East thought of them. These texts are crucial for understanding the use and reception of bathhouses in the Roman world, but almost no new texts are found anymore. It is the excavation and study of the physical remains of these structures that constantly keep producing new finds and insights. Archaeological research, especially in the last 20 years, has helped demonstrate that Roman baths and bathing were not passively received by those in the provinces, but instead these facilities were agents of local expression and reflect locally driven interpretations of Roman practices.

Figure 2: Remains of a bathhouse inside Herod’s palace-fortress at Herodion. The bathhouse had hypocaust pillars of stone (credit: Arleta Kowalewska).
Fig. 2: Remains of a bathhouse inside Herod’s palace-fortress at Herodion. The bathhouse had hypocaust pillars of stone (credit: Arleta Kowalewska).
Figure 3: The ashlar dome of the tepidarium of Herod’s palace-fortress baths at Herodion (credit: Michael Eisenberg)
Fig. 3: The ashlar dome of the tepidarium of Herod’s palace-fortress baths at Herodion (credit: Michael Eisenberg)

Some of the earliest identified Roman-style baths seem to have been introduced to the region through Herod the Great, who furnished many of his palaces with these foreign luxuries in the second half of the 1st century BCE (figs. 2 and 3).  These baths contain the characteristic Roman heating system, called hypocaust – a floor raised on small columns/pillars, inside which hot air circulated, supplied by an adjoining furnace. Recent scholarship makes it increasingly clear that Herod’s baths made a greater impression than previously thought and that he made Roman-style bathing acceptable among the affluent Jewish population in the following decades. Although debated among scholars, there seems to be evidence for Roman-style baths in 1st century CE elite Jewish homes under what is now the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City. If you could afford a private immersion pool, you were probably rich enough that no one dared to criticize you for adding a cozy heated room next to the pool, especially if Herod did it first.

Figure 4: The caldarium (hot room) of the small baths at Ramat haNadiv. Pillars of hypocaust are made of stone, ceramic rooftiles are used to build the upper floor, and a masonry tub for hot water is preserved in part (credit: Arleta Kowalewska).
Fig. 4: The caldarium (hot room) of the small baths at Ramat haNadiv. Pillars of hypocaust are made of stone, ceramic rooftiles are used to build the upper floor, and a masonry tub for hot water is preserved in part (credit: Arleta Kowalewska).

Other 1st century CE private bathing suites come from securely recognized and dated contexts all around the Herodian Kingdom, such as at Ramat haNadiv, attesting to this luxury being popular before Jerusalem’s fall in 70 CE (fig. 4). Those with fewer funds had to make do with public bathhouses, but when these public facilities were introduced is still an open question. Two public establishments excavated in a settlement on the outskirts of ancient Jerusalem were in use from around the year 70 CE, but those found in Magdala or Capernaum may be even earlier. East of the Jordan River, in the modern nation of Jordan, foreign and local archaeologists have brought to light bathhouses and bathing suites of the Nabataeans (fig. 5), many of them probably built before 106 CE when the Romans took direct control. Some of these bathing facilities may have been constructed shortly after the baths built by Herod the Great in his residences. It is hard to assess the extent to which Herod’s baths influenced those of the Nabataeans, as we have not yet pinpointed the dating of the Nabataean villa and road-station baths.

Figure 5: General view of the baths at Jubal Khubtha in Petra, 2nd-4th centuries CE (credit: Fournet and Paridaens 2016, fig. 11 – with permission of authors).
Fig. 5: General view of the baths at Jubal Khubtha in Petra, 2nd-4th cent. CE (credit: Fournet and Paridaens 2016, fig. 11 – with permission of authors).

What happened after the Jewish revolt was crushed and after the Romans took over Arabia three decades later? Can we see the impact of the sustained Roman military presence in the region? As for the construction of bathhouses, it seems to be marginal. In fact, the current evidence indicates that the Roman military turned to the locals to help build their baths. Both along Rome’s eastern frontier (the Limes Arabicus) as well as in the region surrounding Jerusalem, the study of ceramic building materials (bricks and other products used in the construction of the hypocaust) suggests that local craftspeople produced this ceramic material for the Roman army much in the same way as before. This arrangement likely existed in the region surrounding Jerusalem for only a limited time between the two Jewish revolts (i.e., 70-132 CE) until the Roman legionaries opened their own ceramics factory. In the Petra region, however, this reliance on local industries continued through to the 3rd and beginning of the 4th century (a time when the Roman emperor Diocletian revamped the limes and many new forts were built with small bathhouses next to them).

Fig. 6: Recently excavated Roman-period baths in downtown Amman (credit: Freedom's Falcon, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0).
Fig. 6: Recently excavated Roman-period baths in downtown Amman (credit: Freedom's Falcon, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0).

In Jordan, but especially in Israel, many new baths are discovered during rescue excavations undertaken before construction or quarrying. This is how a large bathing complex in the middle of downtown Amman (fig. 6) was recently discovered (it was decided to backfill the excavation instead of enlarging the dig and opening it to the public). Such rescue excavations are also how we know of the continuation of small public baths through the Byzantine period. For example, two extensive quarries in central Israel helped expose the almost full extent of two Christian Byzantine villages, one dated to the 4th century CE (Nesher-Ramla Quarry) and the other to the 6th century (Horvat Zikhrin). Both these villages had not one but two bathing facilities (fig. 7)! Yes, they were small, and yes, the water was probably not of the best quality (the pools and boilers were filled with water brought from a cistern rather than by a constantly flowing aqueduct), but they were there for the everyday use of the villagers to bathe in the Roman style with heated rooms and in warm waters. Roman-style collective bathing was thus not only limited to cities, but was also increasingly practiced in smaller towns and villages during the Roman period and into Late Antiquity.

Fig. 7: General view of the 4th century CE Christian village baths at Nesher-Ramla Quarry (credit: Avrutis 2018, fig. 5.3 – with permission of author).
Fig. 7: General view of the 4th century CE Christian village baths at Nesher-Ramla Quarry (credit: Avrutis 2018, fig. 5.3 – with permission of author).
Figure 8: The unheated pool in the Eastern Baths of Nysa-Scythopolis, with preserved marble lining, small access steps, and a wall with a niche where a statue was once exhibited (credit: Arleta Kowalewska).

Fig. 8: The unheated pool in the Eastern Baths of Nysa-Scythopolis, with preserved marble lining, small access steps, and a wall with a niche where a statue was once exhibited (credit: Arleta Kowalewska).

Newly uncovered buildings, newly noticed details, and new ways of research and analysis constantly change the narrative of Roman-style bathing in the East and challenge previously held conceptions. Quite rarely a spectacular find is made, such as the statues and mosaics with inscriptions found in the large baths of Nysa-Scythopolis (fig. 8 and 9), or the impressively well-preserved small garrison baths at ‘Ayn Gharandal (Fig. 10). Most baths are only preserved in their foundations, with little more than their hypocausts remaining. Nevertheless, the sheer number of Roman bathhouses known from across the Near East is impressive in itself and tells a fascinating story of cultural contact and change in the Roman and Byzantine Near East.

Figure 9: The unheated section of Nysa-Scythopolis’ Western Baths, as restructured in the Byzantine period, with well-preserved inscribed mosaic and colonnade (credit: Arleta Kowalewska).
Fig. 9: The unheated section of Nysa-Scythopolis’ Western Baths, as restructured in the Byzantine period, with well-preserved inscribed mosaic and colonnade (credit: Arleta Kowalewska).
Figure 10: The impressively preserved early 4th century CE garrison baths at 'Ayn Gharandal (credit: 'Ayn Gharandal Archaeological Project, with permission).
Fig. 10: The impressively preserved early 4th century CE garrison baths at 'Ayn Gharandal (credit: 'Ayn Gharandal Archaeological Project, with permission).

Arleta Kowalewska is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Ariel University, Research Fellow at the Zinman Institute of Archaeology at the University of Haifa, and co-director of the Hippos Excavations Project.  She is the author of Bathhouses in Iudaea/Syria-Palaestina and Provincia Arabia from Herod the Great to the Umayyads (Oxbow Books, 2021).

Craig Harvey is a Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of Classical Studies at Western University, Canada, and Associate Director of the Humayma Excavation Project in Jordan. His doctoral dissertation dealt with the construction of Roman baths in the Near East.

Further Reading:

Boussac, M.F., Denoix, S., Fournet, T. and Redon B. (eds) 2014. 25 siecles de bain collectif en Orient. Proche-Orient, Egypte et pennisule Arabique. IFAO/IFPO.

Cohen-Weinberger A., Levi D. and Be’eri R. 2020. On the Raw Materials in the Ceramic Workshops of Jerusalem, Before and After 70 C.E. BASOR 383:33–59.

Darby, R. and Darby, E. 2015. The Late Roman Fort at ‘Ayn Gharandal, Jordan: Interim Report on the 2009–2014 Field Seasons, Journal of Roman Archaeology 28, 461–470.

Eliav, Y.Z. 2023. A Jew in the Roman Bathhouse: Cultural Interaction in the Ancient Mediterranean. Princeton University Press.

Fournet, Th. 2012. The Ancient Baths of Southern Syria in their Near Eastern Context, in R. Kreiner and W. Letzner (eds), SPA Sanitas Per Aquam. Tagungsband des Internationalen Frontinus-Symposiums zur Technik- und Kulturgeschichte der antiken Thermen, Aachen 18.–22. Marz 2009. Peeters, 327–336.

Geva, H. 2022 Caldaria Heated by Hypocausts in the Wealthy Dwellings of the Upper City of Jerusalem. In Y. Gadot, Y. Zelinger, O. Peleg-Barkat, and Y. Shalev eds. New Studies in the Archaeology of Jerusalem and Its Region: Collected Papers 15. Jerusalem, 223–233 (Hebrew).

Harvey C.A. 2018 The Ceramic Building Material Industry along the Southern Limes Arabicus: The Nabataeans as Suppliers to the Roman Army. In C.S. Sommer and S. Matešic eds. Limes XXIII: Proceedings of the 23rd International Congress of Roman Frontier Studies, Ingolstadt 2015 4/II. Nünnerich-Asmus Verlag, 601–607.

Kowalewska A. 2021 Bathhouses in Iudaea/Syria-Palaestina and Provincia Arabia from Herod the Great to the Umayyads. Oxbow Books.

Kowalewska, A. and Bar-Nathan, R. 2022 Bathhouses of Shuafat and the Emergence of Public Bathing in Iudaea. In Y. Gadot, Y. Zelinger, O. Peleg-Barkat, and Y. Shalev eds. New Studies in the Archaeology of Jerusalem and Its Region: Collected Papers 15. Jerusalem, 161*–189*.

Maréchal, S. 2020 Public Baths and Bathing Habits in Late Antiquity. Brill.

Reeves M.B. and Harvey C.A. 2016. A Typological Assessment of the Nabataean, Roman and Byzantine Ceramic Building Materials at al-Ḥumayma and Wādī Ramm. SHAJ 12:443–476.

Yegül, F.K. 2010 Bathing in the Roman World. Cambridge University Press.

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