Caracalla thermal baths (Ankara)
Coordinates: 39 ° 56 ′ 48 ″ N , 32 ° 51 ′ 13 ″ E
The Caracalla Baths are a bathing complex from the Roman Empire in the Turkish capital Ankara , the ancient Ancyra in Galatia .
location
The thermal baths are located in the historical center of Ankara, the Ulus district, west of Çankırı Caddesi. They were erected there on a flat settlement hill, which today rises about 2.5 meters above the road. Small parts of it were built over when the road was built in 1931.
history
The settlement mound, which bears the remains of the bathing complex, was inhabited since the Phrygian period and in the earlier period of the Roman Empire , according to findings from the excavations in 1937 . According to coin finds, the construction of the bath is dated to the time of the Roman emperor Caracalla (r. 211–217). This assessment is supported by inscriptions mentioning Tiberius Julius Justus Junianus , a well-known contemporary citizen of the city who was probably responsible for the construction of the complex, at least also honored for the "construction of the baths". From other coin finds it can be concluded that the facility was in use for about 500 years, during which it was subjected to various repairs and modifications. Presumably in the course of the Persian attacks in the 7th century, the complex was destroyed in a fire.
According to reports from French explorers, large parts of the buildings were preserved up to the 19th century and were popularly referred to as Timerlane Sarayı ( Turkish for Tamerlan's palace ), since according to local tradition Tamerlane was supposed to have stayed here during the Mongol attacks in 1402. The ruins had disappeared by the beginning of the 20th century and were rediscovered in 1931 when Çankırı Caddesi was built. The first excavations were carried out in 1937 by the Turkish archaeologist Remzi Oğuz Arık , who examined the settlement mound and uncovered Phrygian and Roman relics, as well as Byzantine and Seljuk relics on the surface . 1938–1943, Hâmit Zübeyir Koşay's excavations were continued, with the remains of the bathing buildings coming to light. The chief architect of the excavations, Mahmut Akok, prepared the restoration and published the results of his research on the reconstruction in 1968. From 2007, excavation work by the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations was carried out again, during which the beginning of a colonnaded street in the north of the building was exposed . This probably led to the area of the temple of the Roma and Augustus , which is about 400 meters east of the thermal baths.
construction
Today's entrance to the site is in the east on Çankırı Caddesi. From there you first enter the square of the Palaestra , which took up about 80 × 80 meters. The practice area was surrounded on all four sides by porticos with 32 columns each. These were six meters high, had Corinthian capitals and an architrave with inscriptions. Statues were probably placed in the eastern entrance area, two rooms each in the north and two in the south could have been libraries or reading rooms. Today the Palaestra is used as an open-air museum, in which numerous steles, inscriptions, capitals and other architectural fragments from the urban area of Ankara are displayed.
To the west is the actual bathing building with a floor area of 80 × 130 meters. In the entrance area there is a formerly covered exercise room, an apodyterium and a frigidarium with swimming pool. Behind it are the tepidarium (warm water bath), also with a basin, as well as the caldarium (hot water area) and various ancillary and technical rooms. Apart from the foundation walls, little of the rooms has been preserved, but the round brick pillars of the hypocaust underfloor heating are clearly visible everywhere .
In the north of the Palaestra, 17 meters of the column street with adjacent shops was excavated, which probably led to the Augustus temple. It is believed that the street continues under the subsequent Çankırı Caddesi. To the east of the palaestra, near the entrance, there is a Byzantine tomb. The underground grave was found in 1930 near Ankara Central Station during construction work for an administration building and was moved here. The grave has two crossed barrel vaults and is in the 3rd / 4th Dated to the 16th century, it has been restored by the Ankara Museum.
In 2009 excavations in the oldest layer, together with Phrygian ceramics, found an amulet with the birth name twice on the front and the throne name of the Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II (1303-1213 BC) in Egyptian hieroglyphics twice on the reverse wore. Although this belonged to the 19th Dynasty of the New Kingdom , the amulet, like similar pieces in the Petrie Museum and the Ashmolean Museum , is dated from the 25th Dynasty (8th - 7th centuries BC) of the late Egyptian period .
Palaestra
Collection of components in the palaestra
Caldarium
Beginning of the column street to the Augustus temple
Byzantine tomb
literature
- Mahmut Akok: Ankara Şehrindeki Roma hamamı. In: Türk Arkeoloji Dergisi. Volume 17, 1968, pp. 5-37 ( PDF , Turkish).
- Marianne Mehling (Hrsg.): Knaur's cultural guide in color Turkey . Droemer-Knaur, Munich 1987, ISBN 3-426-26293-2 , p. 75.
- Wolfgang Dorn: Turkey, Central Anatolia: between Phrygia, Ankara and Cappadocia. DuMont Reiseverlag 2012, ISBN 9783770166169 , p. 71
Web links
- The Remnants of Roman Ancyra , Bilkent University Department of Archeology
- Ankara Roman Bath
Individual evidence
- ^ Lost inscription AE 1981, 782 (= No. 1041 ( Memento from March 6, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) of the epigraphic database of the University of Hamburg ).
- ↑ a b The remnants of Roman Ancyra Bilkent University
- ↑ Information board on the site about the history
- ↑ Mahmut Akok: Ankara Şehrindeki Roma Hamamı. In: Türk Arkeoloji Dergisi. Volume 17, 1968, pp. 5-37.
- ↑ Information board found on the site
- ↑ Information board on the site of the Byzantine tomb
- ↑ Hasan Peker: An Amulet with the Names of Ramesses II from the Roman Baths at Ankara In: K. Aslıhan Yener (Ed.): Across the Border: Late Bronze-Iron Age Relations between Syria and Anatolia - Proceedings of a Symposium held at the Research Center of Anatolian Studies, Koç University, Istanbul May 31 – June 1, 2010 (= Ancient Near East Studies Supplement 42) Leuven 2013 pp. 539–540