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Excavation

  • Bath at Basilica of Ballsh
  • Ballsh
  •  
  • Albania
  • Fier County
  • Bashkia Mallakastër
  • Bashkia e Ballshit

Tools

Credits

  • The Italian Database is the result of a collaboration between:

    MIBAC (Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali - Direzione Generale per i Beni Archeologici),

    ICCD (Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione) and

    AIAC (Associazione Internazionale di Archeologia Classica).

  • AIAC_logo logo

Summary (English)

  • In 2003 together with the Basilica of Ballsh was also excavated the bath near by it. It has a quadrangle outline plan, measuring to: 8.20m long and 5.80m wide. The bath has three main rooms, a pool and a small water tank. On the eastern side was partly revealed a parallel wall with traces of the doorstep. The outline plan of the bath is well preserved whereas the standing walls survive only to a 1.10 m high above the floor pavement. On the southern side of the bath was revealed the first room (A), which has a quadrangle plan, measuring to 2.95 × 1.55m. In this room was found a 0.75 wide doorway, opened to the south, enabling in this way the access to the bath. The floor of this room is paved with limestone slabs placed above the hypocaust. On its wall sides were noticed traces of sitting banks. On the eastern side of its wall were revealed traces of a drainage ditch measuring to 0.14 × 0.14m. Based on its location and the materials revealed from the excavations it is likely to be the Tepidarium room that has function at the same time as the Apodyterium.
    To the west of this room was revealed a pool (area d), measuring to 1 × 1.40m and 1.08m high. This pool was supplied with water by a ceramic tube, and it is likely that it might have been the cold water basin.
    The area A on its north side through a door way 0.75m wide connects to the main hall of the bath (area B). This hall is bigger then the other rooms 92.95 × 2.90m). The remains of marble slabs on its eastern side suggest that it might have had a marble floor, whereas the sittings banks have been made of bricks. This latter have been placed to the south-western and north-western corners whereas on the opposite side were founded traces of a water pool covered with hydro isolation mortar. Its walls are preserved to 0.40m of high. This area might have been functioned as room the Sudatorium, where the sweating process, the massaging and the washing has taken place.
    An entrance of 0.67m wide placed in the northern side of the main room leads to the last area, the Calidarium, the hot room. This room measures to 2.90 × 1.26m, and is divided into three annexes. The two laterals are 1.26m long and 0.80m wide and are separated by each other through the cylindrical vault of the Praefurnium, which was badly preserved.
    The area E (4m long and 0.60m wide), to the west of the bath was covered with hydro isolation mortar and has functioned as a water tank. To its southern wall are preserved traces of ceramic tubes that furnished with water the cold and the hot pools. The last area to have been excavated was that of the fire place. It has a trapezium shape and measures from 4-4.5m to 3.7m. The fire place do not date to the same time with the other parts of the bath, and its walls apart from being detach from the other structures are of a different building technique. The bricks are missing and the walls are bounded up with clay. The hearth is on the middle north side and is covered with a cylindrical arch and two antes that traverse the wall. In the middle of the arch is the chimney. The hot steaming of the Praefurnium after circulating underneath the bath floor, come out through two ceramic chimneys placed on the western wall of the main room. The northern chimney badly preserved because of the fact that in a second phase a grave was constructed above it. The hypocaust pillars were made of circular and quadrangle bricks and its height varies from 0.80m in the Calidarium to 0.65m in the Tepidarium. Above the pillars is the first floor basement layer built with slabs of sandy stones, above it is a layer of mortar and brick crumbs and at the end is placed the marble or limestone floor pavement. It was noticed that the bath was abandoned before the basilica and above its walls were constructed graves. On the outer side of the western wall was founded a deposit layer of ceramic dating to the 12th – 13th centuries A.D., which provide a terminus post quem date for the construction of the bath.

Director

  • Kosta Lako
  • Skёnder Muçaj - Insituti i Arkeologjisë Tiranë, Departamenti i Antikitetit të Vonë dhe Mesjetës së Hershme (Albanian Institute of Archaeology, Department of Late Antiquity and Early Medieval)

Team

  • Blerina Dode
  • Sindorela Golemi - Insituti i Arkeologjisë Tiranë, Departamenti i Antikitetit (Albanian Institute of Archaeology, Department of Antiquity)
  • Solinda Kamani - Instituti i Monumenteve të Kulturës Tiranë (Albanian Institute of Monuments of Culture)
  • Elio Hobdari - Instituti i Arkeologjisë Tiranë, Departamenti i Antikitetit të Vonë dhe Mesjetës së Hershme (Albanian Institute of Archaeology, Department of Late Antiquity and Early Medieval)
  • Arjan Dimo - Parku Kombëtar Arkeologjik Apolloni(National Archaeological Park of Apollonia)

Research Body

  • Instituti Arkeologjik Tiranë (Albanian Institute of Archaeology)

Funding Body

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