AQUAE CALIDAE – THERMA (Tsonya Drazheva, Dimcho Momchilov – karnobat.muzey@mail.bg) Public mineral baths were built near the Sanctuary of the Three Nymphs at the end of the 1st – 2nd century AD. Aquae Calidae was mentioned in Tabula Peutingeriana as a mansio situated on the road between Anchialos and Kabyle. Procopius of Caesarea informed us of the construction of a fortress during the reign of Justinian I. During the Middle Ages, the settlement was called Therma (Thermopolis, Megale Therme). The first archaeological excavations were conducted in 1910. During the present archaeological season sondages were carried out. A wall built of ashlars bonded with mortar, 2 m wide, was discovered in Sondage East. It enclosed a caldarium with a hypocaust, built in the 4th century AD, with a pool for warm water, 4.30 m by 3.60 m in size, constructed of bricks bonded with mortar. Pavement of stone plates in the caldarium and stone benches arranged along the walls were discovered. In the middle of the 6th century AD the caldarium was barred with an inner wall. A tepidarium of the 6th century AD with trays and two drains, constructed of stones bonded with mortar and bottoms of bricks, was discovered. A fragment of a Greek inscription of the 4th – 5th century AD was reused in the construction of the wall. Walls, identical to the walls of the caldarium, were discovered in Sondage West. They enclosed a room with a floor of bricks, dated by a coin of Justinian I. The public baths measured c. 80 m by 56 m. A fortification wall, 2.80 m wide, built of ashlars bonded with mortar, was discovered in Sondage 1. It was built during the reign of Justinian I and was demolished after the 12th century. Then, it was reused for the building of a single-nave church, 6 m long and 2 m wide. Six Christian graves of adults dated to the 12th – 15th centuries were explored. A layer with traces of fire and a destruction of the fortification wall were documented in Sondage 2. The destruction occurred after the 12th century, probably during the punitive military operation carried on in 1206 by Henry of Flanders, Emperor of the Latin Empire of Constantinople.