Bath Discovered in Roman Barracks in Bulgaria

News September 27, 2016

(J. Reclaw)
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Bulgaria Novae coins
(J. Reclaw)

WARSAW, POLAND—Science & Scholarship in Poland reports that a team of archaeologists from the Center for the Study of Antiquity of Southeastern Europe at the University of Warsaw excavated a Roman barracks at the site of Novae in Bulgaria. Although the buildings had been constructed with wood, the floor of one large room had been made from hydraulic mortar, suggesting that the room had been used as a bath. “Until now, throughout the empire only two baths in wooden buildings have been discovered, but never and nowhere in the barracks of legionnaires,” said archaeologist Piotr Dyczek. The team also uncovered terracotta and lead pipes, water channels lined with stone and bricks, and a collection of 48 coins dating from the beginning of the second century A.D. to the mid-third century A.D. Dyczek thinks the coins may have been hidden during the invasion of the Goths. To read more about archaeology in Bulgaria, go to "Thracian Treasure Chest."

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