Project dates: August 15th - August 28th    Official certificate: Yes    Academic credits: TBA*

*CREDITS ISSUED BY ANY BULGARIAN INSTITUTION OR ORGANISATION WILL NOT BE DIRECTLY RECOGNISED BY YOUR ACADEMIC INSTITUTION! For this reason, Archeologistica distributes to participants in its projects official certificates, issued and signed by official, full time members of our affiliate academic institutions (The Bulgarian Academy of Science, The Bulgarian Institute of Archaeology, The Institute of Thracology and others). The certificate we are issuing enables participants in our projects to receive full accreditation at their respective academic institution.

Project Objectives

   The goal of the Roman Baths Educational Workcamp is to prepare the grounds of a Roman bath house (dated to the 2nd century B.C.) for further investigation by specialists from the Regional Historical Museum - Stara Zagora. As the title of the project suggests, in addition to the workcamp, participants will also be offered theoretical lectures on the subject of Roman architecture in general and, more specifically, on Roman bath house architecture in the province of Thrace. The lectures will be presented in English by experts working in the fields of archaeology and history, and will be supplemented by excursions to the sites of other Roman bath houses in the ancient province of Thrace (see Project Structure below). Participants in the project will also have the opportunity to sieve the earth covering the remains of the Roman bath house, which has not been examined by archaeologists and is expected to contain many artifacts.

   By participating in this project you will be helping with the acquisitions of new knowledge about Roman architecture in the ancient province of Thrace, as well as helping us preserve an important part of the world’s cultural heritage.

   The Roman Baths Educational Workcamp project will take place and under the guidance and assistanceof professionals and experts from the Regional Historical Museum of the city of Stara Zagora, who will be available to answer any of the participants' questions.

		Roman Baths, present condition
Location of the site on the map of Bulgaria

Historical Background

   The thermae near the modern city of Stara Zagora, the largest and the best preserved in Bulgaria, were discovered during an attempt to locate the channeling of the Turkish baths in order to repair it. The site was excavated from 1955 to 1964, and the building was identified. It is composed of 12 distinct parts, or rooms, and occupies an area of 2 500 m². The artifacts found at the site indicate that it was used from the 2nd to the 12th centuries A.D. An inscription in ancient Greek, discovered in 1965, dates the building of the thermae to 162-163 A.D. and identifies the official responsible for their construction as Ulpius Hieronymus, born in Nicomedia, high priest of Augusta Traiana. The inscription also gives a detailed list of the rooms built by Hyeronimos: two changing rooms one for men and one for women, two basins (one for warm and one for hot water), a frigidarium or cold water basin, a nymphaeum, vestibules, a channeling from the mineral springs to the thermae, as well as an aqueduct for the cold water. Other rooms were added to the main building during the following centuries.