MOIRES - 2010

Moires. V. Sythiakaki (13th EBA) reports the discovery of a late Imperial bath.

The three main rooms and the channel feeding the hypocaust system were located. The caldarium was probably covered by a dome: on the west side were baths and perhaps a swimming pool, all above the mouth of the praefurnium; the walls contained a piped heating system. The tepidarium had a separate praefurnium and hypocaust on square pillar-supports, but no wall heating. The frigidarium lies to the north and east, partly in a neighbouring plot. The floor was covered in a thick layer of hydraulic plaster.

South of the bath, a rectangular pithos store probably held wine (the pithoi, found in situ, were walled up to the rim). On the west side was a yard and evidence of habitation (the lowest levels appear domestic in character).

The fabric of the floor of the second phase contained a follis of the Emperor Heracleius and his son Constantinus (626/7–631/2 AD), a date consistent with the pottery of the same phase (e.g. a TRC 10 amphora from the pithos store). A bread stamp bore the owner’s name: (ICXC) BOHΘΙ ΔΟΥΛΩ CΟ(Υ) [C]ΩΤΙΝΩ. The first phase of the bath dates no earlier than the fifth to early sixth century AD.