Archaeologists Discover Ancient Roman Baths Beneath a Museum in Croatia

Artnet ^ | December 12, 2023 | Verity Babbs

[SunkenCiv]

Archaeologists working to install a lift and restore the ground floor of Split City Museum got more than they bargained for when they unearthed sizeable Roman baths underneath the building's reception. The museum in Croatia's second largest city was founded in 1946 and is held inside the Dominik Papalic palace—the former home of the affluent Papalic family who settled in Split during the 14th century.

The baths are in a well-preserved condition and include a pool, mosaic floors, ancient underfloor heating, an oil and grape press, and a furnace. Communal bathing was common across the Roman Empire, and baths acted as a space for relaxation and socialising.

The Split baths are believed to have been part of Diocletian's Palace, built in the city at the end of the 3rd century for the Roman emperor's retirement. The large fortress once spanned half of Split's Old Town, and parts of the palace's remains are listed UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The discovery of these Roman baths confute historians' previous understandings about the layout of the ancient complex...

Split lies on the Adriatic Sea coast and was founded in the 3rd century B.C.E. as a Greek colony (then known as Aspálathos). Split's landscape is made up of myriad architectural styles spanning hundreds of years, from classical ruins to Venetian Gothic structures. The director of the Split City Museum Vesna Bulic Baketic, spoke about the city's rich architectural composition, "the fact that all of these layers of earlier buildings that once made up the city are visible inside the Split City Museum provides this museum with additional value that is exceptionally rare."

[SunkenCiv]

• 1,900-year-old winery — that made drinks for ancient Romans — found in France [12/21/2023]
• This 2,300-year-old mosaic made of shells and coral has just been found buried under Rome [12/21/2023]

[SunkenCiv]

The photos are all Getty and can't be posted. Also, I had quite a time getting the text etc.

[Red Badger]

So it was a Split decision?.........................

[Scrambler Bob]

Will the IDF be finding any Roman Baths?

Oh, sorry, Hamas does’t bathe.

[AJFavish]

Did they go with the bold look of Kohler?

[C210N]

Interesting about the use of getty images.

That aside, it’s fascinating to see the one in particular depicting the mechanisms for heating of the floor/rooms, and the heating of water for the baths.

[central_va]

Did they find this sign?

"non pee in stagnum"

[Steven Scharf]

Archaeologists working to install a lift and restore the ground floor of Split City Museum

Seems like strange work for Archaeologists. I assume it was mistranslated from contractors or something similar.

[SunkenCiv]

Since the area is lousy with unmapped antique remains, it probably was being supervised by archaeologists. Diocletian’s retirement villa is in great shape, btw, and I think has been in continuous use, and currently in use as individual apartments.

[teeman8r]

even the syphilis was preserved

[Tell It Right]

If I remember history correctly, the Romans made a big deal about sweating. They saw it as a form of cleanliness by sweating out the body’s impurities. So the elites (rich and/or military leaders) had heated baths/saunas built everywhere they took over for the elites to make themselves more pure than their subjects.

[Migraine]

“So it was a Split decision?...”

Yep. Made in a Split second.

[SunkenCiv]

Syphilis was introduced from the Americas by Columbus. That’s factual, but there’s been an ideological effort on to claim that was already present. The culprit in the data is Yaws, which fools some during ancient autopsies.

[Larry Lucido]