Varna's Roman Baths
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Okay, so one upon a time there was this thing
sticking out of the ground in what was referred to as the "Roman Section."
A Czech archeologist looked at it and decided that it would be kind of cool
to see if there was more than met the eye. So he organized an
excavation. It was the ruins of a Roman Bath. Nobody had realized this because there was a smaller bath in another part of town, and why would there be two? But it turns out that this one was there first, but there came a point where the city could no longer support a bath of this size. The marble and fixtures were torn out and used to construct a smaller bath, and this one fell to ruin. |
| Currently, only one quadrant of the bath has been
uncovered, but the government has laid claim to the other three. When the
people who own those buildings die, the excavation will continue. This is Karel Shkorpil, the guy who started it. |
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In this picture, you can clearly see how the below-ground section is cleaner than the part that was exposed for hundreds of years. The Bulgarian soil is very fertile, but the country is striving to overcome the residual pollution accumulated during the communist regime. |
| This was the hot room, the place with all the
steam. It was huge, and would have been duplicated in mirror image in
one of the as-of-yet unexcavated section. The buildings in the
background will someday be torn down to reveal the other half of the bath.
The other two quadrants are believed to be the plaza in front of the
entrance. Notice how lush and green the foliage is. |
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The baths that replaced these were smaller, so marble that was damaged was simply left here. There wasn't much of it, but what was there was beautifully carved. We were a little disgusted by the graffiti. I really believe that most people are basically good at heart, but I get really irritated with the ones who aren't. |
| This was a service hallway that ran around the edge of the facility. Through it, workers (slaves, really) could access the heating pipes, travel the building, and carry relatively large items, all unseen by the patrons of the baths. |
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This is a Greek amphorae, a large, pointy-ended vessel for transporting lard, perfumes, and other liquids. They were stored on ships the way Easter eggs are stored on drying trays and sealed with wax. They wash up out of the Black Sea periodically, often with little or no damage. One was discovered with the seal intact, and the lard within it wasn't even rancid. |
