From August 30 to October 8, 2021, a field season of the project “Bathing Culture and the Development of Urban Space: Case Study Pompeii”, was carried out in the Stabian Baths (VII 1, 8) at Pompeii in order to clarify three main questions: a) the shape of the west wall of the palaestra in phase 1 of the baths; b) the development of devices for heating and water management in room VIII; and c) the construction date and development of the house to the west of the baths, which was only integrated into the baths after the earthquake of AD 62 when it was transformed into the currently visible complex with natatio and nymphaea.

Excavations were carried out in 9 areas, both reopening areas investigated by earlier researchers and opening new areas: the palaestra; room VIII; tabernae 2, 4, 54, 60, 61; corridors 59 and H’.

In the SW corner of the palaestra, a large round room with a diameter of about 8m was found which served most likely as a laconicum in the first phase of the baths. It was later cut by a large drainage channel that came from the natatio and ran from NW to SE (fourth phase of the baths). The large drainage channel that runs from N to S through the middle of the palaestra and had been found in earlier seasons (2016, 2018) was revealed at the eastern border of the trench (third phase).

In room VIII, several service installations were uncovered that can be assigned to the two last phases of the baths. When the men’s caldarium was provided with an apse in the west and a labrum in phase 3, two staircases were built in the SW and SE corners of the room. Both allowed the servicing of the new installations above ground and underground. A channel running from E to W to the north of the staircases drained water from the eastern praefurnium section. This channel was replaced by a much larger example further N after AD 62 (fourth phase).

The excavation of the service section was complemented by the work of speleologists Mauro Palumbo, Mario Cristiano, and Marco Ruocco who investigated all accessible water channels, cisterns, and the hypocaust system of the baths.

The house that coexisted with the baths until AD 62 was explored by excavating the palaestra , as well as the aforementioned tabernae and corridors. Several razed walls and different pavements were found that belonged to at least eight confined rooms (several cubicula, a vestibule, and other rooms) and two large spaces (possibly an atrium and a peristyle). The pavements include high quality examples of decorated opus tessellatum mosaics and opus signinum floors in the closed rooms and lithostrota in the large spaces. Coins found in the fills that served to raise the floors for the tabernae of the baths can be dated to AD 64 and confirm that the house was destroyed and abandoned after the earthquake of AD 62.