Roman Baths

I think the reason the reason they named the city of Bath the way they did is due to the large Roman Bath that is there. This is a picture of the place from the upper balcony. The city is uncovering the bath bit by bit, this upper portion is refurbished to look like it would have back when the Romans used it. The statues are of famous people who most likely had been to the bath in the past.



As you walk in, they have a museum about the bath through different periods of history. They have a bunch of old statues and curses that were thrown into the bath. Apparently old users of the bath used to throw curses written on metal sheets into the bath. Anything from a stolen cloak, to a stolen cow. They would come to the bath, have a scribe write up a curse on a sheet of metal, then they would throw the curse into the bath.



They also show you the underlying structure of the baths when you walk around the museum.



This is a picture of the large bath itself. It's below street level and I think it might have been unearthed and they are still unearthing parts of it now.



Around the bath they have actors playing parts of the people who would normally be found around the bath in roman times. This is a picture of the priest, there was also a stone mason working with some tools in a corner.



Like a lot of other roman baths, they had sauna rooms by pumping lots of hot water under the floors. These are the pillars that held up the floor so the hot water could run underneath it.



This is spring well. It's been around for a very long time, although it used to be higher. You can see the dark line around the walls, that's the old height of the water. People used to bring sick people here so that they could be healed by the waters. They let us drink some of the water at the end of the tour, it was pretty disgusting to taste. Just warm and bad tasting.