MEGARA, 8 Iapidos Street - 2005

Megara, 8 Iapidos Street. P. Avgerinou (Γ’ ΕΠΚΑ) reports the discovery of a small late antique bath complex just east of the city wall, in an area occupied by Late Roman and Early Byzantine workshops, which was destroyed in the Early Byzantine period. Three rooms were excavated (with two more extending beneath the modern street): they were arranged along a north-south axis 10.5m long.

The caldarium, room A to the south, had semicircular bays on the east and west sides and a rectangular bay on the south, all with openings communicating with the main room. These bays likely held bathtubs. The foundations were of unworked stones in cement, and the superstructure of brick and cement (tubuli for hot air circulation ran inside the bricks). To the north, the tepidarium, room B neighboured the unctorium, room Γ. The walls of both had stone foundations, with a layer of brick above and then a divided superstructure (the outer face in fieldstones and cement, the inner in brick). Room B, which communicated with room A, contained conduits for hot air pipes.

Tegulae mammatae were also found, plus a few sections of curved brick from hypocaust supports. No evidence of a praefurnium were found in the area investigated, though one must have existed to the south of the caldarium. All three rooms produced large quantities of domestic pottery and fragments of glass vessels, chiefly Early Byzantine stemmed wineglasses.