Newsletters
Excavations have restarted at the Roman Bath in the ancient city of Tyana in Nigde province after a break of 20 years.
The site is in Kemerhisar, a town in the Bor district of Nigde, in central Türkiye. Nigde lies in central Anatolia, within the wider Cappadocia region.
The work is part of the Culture and Tourism Ministry’s Heritage for the Future Project. The team aims to identify earlier phases of the bath and to determine whether related structures existed, such as a palestra, an exercise area or courtyard, or a gymnasium, a center where young people received physical and mental education. New findings on remains from periods before the Roman era are also expected.
Prof. Osman Doganay, head of the Tyana excavation team and a member of the archaeology department at Aksaray University, told Anadolu Agency that Tyana was the metropolis of the Cappadocia region in the Roman period. He said the Roman emperor Caracalla built the bath in 213 CE.
Doganay said the structure was altered under later emperors. Earlier excavations began in 2002 and continued for four years, uncovering numerous remains. The current form and plan of the building are understood, and it is known with certainty to have been a public bath, he said.
The bath stands on the southern slopes of Tyana Hoyuk, a mound in the ancient city, a side that receives the most heat. Doganay estimated that much of the water carried by arches from the Roman Pool reached the bath, noting that water pipes leading toward it were seen in excavations carried out in the interim.
He added that the city has at least two more baths and that work to locate them will begin.
This year, the team mostly removed debris and rubbish from the area. A probe at a depth of nearly two meters showed that the bath was built on top of a Bronze Age layer.
“In our upcoming work, we will reveal all units of the bath and also uncover structures such as a palestra and gymnasium, where sports activities took place, if they exist. We also estimate that we will reach important findings about the city’s cultural heritage from well before the Roman period,” Doganay said.
Doganay said measures to protect the structure are being applied during the excavation. He said no comparable bath complex exists elsewhere in the Cappadocia region.
“We are working to include the Roman Bath in the Tyana Ancient City tour route and make the bath a destination point,” he said, adding that the aim is to bring Tyana to tourism and the regional economy.
Set as preferred source
Set as preferred source
2 min read
