ArchaeoBlog

As promised (quite a while ago, sad to say), here is the second part of the earlier post on the Roman bath at Karanis.

Earlier, we had wended our way through most of the interior, finishing up in the laconicum or steam/sauna room. That was the penultimate room before entering the hot-water bath or the caldarium:


A few things to note:
– The large hole in the floor is again probably where they excavated to get into the hypocaust system beneath the floor.
– The only stone in the floor is the one near the foot of the tub, the other one next to it is now gone.
– In the top right there is a plastered brick surface which is, surprisingly, largely intact. It is believed that there was a cold water basin up against this wall.
– Note the cracks in the tub: one at the far (head) end, and one in the panel closest to the foot. Part of the reason these photos are so valuable is that we can assess what damage has been done in modern times; these cracks were at least there in 1975 so did not occur in the interim. Also note that part of the lower right corner of the tub was broken off, but has since been reattached (in 2001 by the SCA).
– The SCA also built up the steps on both sides and the “seat” of the tub.

As for the tub itself:


The rebuilt steps cover what was fired brick (presumably also plastered in antiquity). We’d thought these held up pretty well when we though it was done in the 1980s. But after only 11 years the plaster has been damaged, probably because of people getting into and out of the tub for photos. Also note the size of the end piece that was refitted. Unfortunately, the crack near the seat in the ‘now’ photo isn’t really visible in the old photos so we can’t tell if that one’s new or not (I think it’s not).

Now to the outside:


This is the northeast corner looking at the “boiler room” part of the structure. It is lower than the rest of it, obviously, but not like an entire lower floor; it’s not as tall as a full floor. Bear in mind that that this was all covered in sand almost up to the top when we got there (you can see the top of the sand on the right). We hadn’t actually planned on uncovering all of this, but the sand here is reasonably compact so you can make a pretty stable baulk out of it, so I decided we should try to expose it anyway.
Notice that it looks pretty similar with one major exception: the arch on top which is completely gone. This happened prior to the 2001 restoration as the tops of the walls where the arch sat are covered in plaster.

Otherwise, it’s nicely intact. I believe that they left this open in 1975 as the historic debris that we found in the sand is from the late 1970s, and one 1977 newspaper was found within the lower opening, suggesting it filled up rather quickly.

Lastly, the drainage system:

This is all off to the east of the rest of the building. The circular structure is the cistern into which drained the water. We’re still not sure about the opening in the side of the cistern. . . .it appears to have been designed that way as the one edge is nice and vertical, not broken off, and the bricks visible (not in the photo) seem to make a termination point there. It’s not plastered on the inside and isn’t really that sturdily built so it probably wasn’t designed to hold water for any length of time (the bottom is just dirt as well, though we didn’t excavate down to great depth). I suspect it was just there to allow waste water to collect and seep into the soil and direct any excess out away from the bath.

Also of note: the drainage channel in that old photo and others has it covered throughout its length by square fired bricks; we’d excavated down expecting to find those, but we didn’t: they were almost all gone. Only five remain, the three visible here and two more at the other end. But we were able to see how the channel was constructed because of it. Seems to have been a U-shaped channel made out of fired and plastered mud bricks and then covered over with the square bricks. No idea why they were removed, but there you have it.

I promised something somewhat controversial in an upcoming post. And here it. . . . .isn’t. Yet. But this is an important aspect of it to provide context and background. This will probably be split into two posts as there is a lot of material here. I don’t know what WordPress’s limits on post length is, so we’ll have to see.

What I’m going to present to you is an overview of the work I did in Egypt this season. To summarize for those who haven’t been following, I was charged with clearing out the ‘Grand Roman Bath’ at Karanis, on the NE end of the Fayum Depression.

The Bath itself is probably 3-5th century AD in date — more about that later — and was first cleared and studied in 1975 by a team from Cairo University. They published their work through the BIFAO (link); unfortunately (for me anyway) it was nearly all in French, so I spent quite a bit of time working with my meager French and Google Translate (link) to go through that and learn all I could about its construction and use, from what the French/Egyptian team found.

Happily, they also published a lot of plan drawings and photographs so we have a pretty good idea of what the Bath looked like when they uncovered it in 1975. Since it has been left largely open to the elements — and tourists — ever since, it gives us a valuable opportunity to see just what sorts of changes have occurred to the structure in the 40-odd years since it was first uncovered. The 1975 photos and descriptions are a baseline, if you will, that allows us to judge how well the structure has fared over the years, what parts are most subject to damage and decay, and from that develop a plan to preserve it as best we can while still allowing some kind of visitor access to this important (and very popular) building.
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Just a couple of new photos today, not particularly clear unfortunately. This first one is at Karanis and is the south temple:

The thing to notice here — apart from the hot babe archaeologist sitting in the doorway — is that she is sitting at what would have been the level of the surface when the temple was in operation. Where did the rest of the ground go? Into surrounding fields. The sediment from archaeological sites here tends to be rich in organics, as one might expect from human habitations, and for the past hundred or so years, locals have been literally mining archaeological sites for fertilizer. The material is called “sebakh” and the people who dig it out are called “sebakhin”.

Now, at Karanis around 1920 or so, a company was set up to mine the place on really an industrial scale. They had a small railroad for hauling the sediment away and even set up their little company field office in one of the ancient Roman buildings. . .and then started gouging out the middle of the site. What they did can barely be grasped by this photo:
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Okay, just a couple of glam shots of the Roman bath, cleaned up nicely and glowing in the early morning light. No commentary, just enjoy. . . . .

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Just a couple of photos today. First up, the brick making process in going full bore:

The upright ones are finished, or nearly so:

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A very little bit of Fayum geology. We have a quarry across the street from our dig house and I’ve been meaning to go check it out for a while now and finally got the opportunity to do so yesterday. I believe in this area what we have is the “Ravine Beds” a middle Eocene series of soft sandstones, claystones, marls, and limestones. These all derive from a marine source, the former Tethys Sea, the much larger precursor to the Mediterranean. At that time the coastline was much further south than it is now and also moved around north and south depending on sea levels, so the deposits generally tend to reflect the location of the shoreline.

Here is a shot of one of the walls:

The lowest stratum and what makes up the floor of the quarry here is a compact yellow very fine sandy silt; I believe they’ve been using this in our brick making operation. I believe this is a deep-water environment since there are no fossils at all in it and it’s very homogeneous. Above that is a series of different strata, none very thick suggesting a series of different depositional environments over a relatively short period of time. Above that is a layer of finely stratified sand, almost like a dune. Note how it has scoured down to pinch off two sections of the stuff above it. That sand layer is pretty neat actually:
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With photos! Today was very productive and we uncovered a great deal of the structure that has gone unseen since 1975. First, though, a couple of photos from nearby. First, the Great Mud Brick Wall of Death:

This is just outside the bath and you can see how the wall is undercut along the left end there. Also note the two cracks farther back, indicating that it is starting to slump in the direction of the undercut and could probably go at any time. We plan on using new mud bricks to put underneath the undercut portion to hopefully shore it up enough. It’s a very large portion of wall so if it goes when someone is right next to it. . . . . .

Next: The Door Lintel of Death:
(Not: old pic code is back!)
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Few days of limited access, first in Cairo and then back at the ranch here. I stayed at the Giza project villa — yes, ‘villa’ — and it was quite nice. It’s Mark Lehner’s project and they have a good sized budget to work with. Nothing like a dar room with an AC unit for a good night’s sleep. Next day I went to the pyramids by myself (was going to meet some peeps but we never quite hooked up) and. . . it was irritating. Got bothered a lot by sellers of junk who don’t usually pay me much mind. One jerk got all in my face demanding to see my ticket, saying he was with ’security’. Ha! I spent quite a bit of time looking around the base of the great pyramid for an early manatee skeleton RR told us was there, but to no avail. A couple people asked if I was meditating just walking back and forth staring at the ground. Was kind of relaxing, I’ll admit. . . .
And to prove it:

Otherwise, I spent time at a, um, shopping mall. Yes! GAWD, how nice was that. And most of that time sitting in a Starbucks with a mocha. YUM. I thoroughly enjoyed that. I wrote this elsewhere:

I don’t care what “they” say, one can find peace at a shopping mall. After spending a month in the field with nothing nearby except farms and villages and sheep and goats, sitting here in a suburban mall Starbucks, I am as relaxed and content as can be. I like watching the shoppers go about their business, kids running and having fun, the Starbucks barista clearing off tables between orders, and commerce happening all around. And here I sit in my little oasis, warm chocolate chip muffin and mug of water and iPad whiling away a couple of hours. Civilization is way underrated. Let the granola-heads don their hair shirts and eat certified organic nuts and twigs and leave me to enjoy a warm mocha in a corner watching a lot of pretty happy-looking people enjoy being around one another.

And then there was this. . . .

Anyway. . . .more photos!
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