Roman Bath Discovered in Colchester

COLCHESTER, ENGLAND—A Roman public bath has been unearthed during renovations of a fifteenth-century building, the Daily Gazette reports. Archaeologists found tiles for hollow flues, which would have been placed under floors and inside walls to heat the bath’s warm and hot rooms. Philip Crummy of the Colchester Archaeological Trust said, “A lot more work in future will be needed to find out about the layout and development of the building but we can now at least be sure where it stood and where its main heated rooms were located.” Underneath the bath’s stone foundations was evidence of an earlier structure destroyed in A.D. 61, during the revolt of Celtic queen Boudicca against the Romans. Previous excavations in Colchester have uncovered the remains of the Roman town’s other public buildings and infrastructure, including a circus, a theater, temples, a drainage system, and pressurized water supply. For more on Roman baths, go to “Digging Deeper into Pompeii’s Past: Water and Bathing.”