Sumptuous Roman Baths Uncovered Near Sea of Galilee

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According to the Greek biographer Eunapius, the second most beautiful bath complex in the entire Roman Empire during the fourth century A.D. was located in, of all places, Palestine—at a site known as Hammat Gader.¹

Hammat Gader lies just five miles southeast of the Sea of Galilee in a huge crater-like depression at the foot of the Golan Heights. It is a beautiful site surrounded by green mountains, near the banks of the Yarmuk River.

The location is important. Hammat Gader lies in the Great Rift, which extends north from Africa and runs through the Red Sea, up the Jordan Valley and on to Syria. Not far below the earth’s surface at Hammat Gader, volcanic activity still occurs. In ancient times as now there bubbles through the surface—the result of volcanic activity—some of the most marvelous, minerally rich hot springs anywhere in the world. And these springs undoubtedly account for the attraction of the site—from earliest times to the present.

Seventeen hundred years ago Hammat Gader (or the Hot Springs of Gader) was an internationally famous spa. People came from all over the Roman world to enjoy its therapeutic benefits, its social pleasures, and its religious comforts.

In 1979 we conducted the first of seven seasons of excavations at the ancient baths. We uncovered more than 80 percent of the thermae, or bath complex. If there is one thing that is clear from our excavations, it is that the baths of Hammat Gader were built to the highest imperial standards. The architectural grandeur of what we uncovered far surpassed anything we had anticipated.

The bath complex was approached by a wide paved street that led, at the other end, to a semicircular theater east of the baths where visitors to Hammat Gader could find entertainment when they were not enjoying the baths.

We have not yet found the bath complex’s main entrance, but we have found a corridor which led from the main entrance of the baths to the bathing rooms. This corridor is over 22 feet wide and originally had a vaulted roof. The dark entrance corridor was intended to dramatize the first appearance of the bathing rooms. The bather 024would emerge from the darkness of the corridor into the beautifully lit and decorated thermae.

Another entrance to (or perhaps an exit from) the thermae was from an extensive pavement laid on bedrock, which led down the hillside to the baths. A stairway of seven steps allowed the bather to descend from the pavement to this entrance. The stairway, of well dressed black basalt steps and nearly eight feet wide, was found completely preserved.

Passing through the dark entrance corridor of the main entrance to the bath complex, the visitor to Hammat Gader would suddenly find himself in front of a magnificent freestanding colonnade through which he could see the first pool in the baths.

In our excavations, we found major parts of this colonnade and have now faithfully reconstructed it at the site. It rises over 24 feet above the ground, capped by a lintel called a Syrian arch, which has a shape like this: The arch rests on two columns, and the wings of the lintel rest on pilasters. The bases and lower sections of the columns were discovered in situ; the upper portions were found in the debris, where we also discovered the two Corinthian capitals and all the sections of the beautifully decorated arcuated^a lintel. One side of the lintel is adorned with acanthus leaves and palmettes, and the other with floral and animal meanders.

On the basis of the schematic style of the lintel, we can date this colonnade to some time in the fourth century A.D. The hall itself, however, was built considerably earlier—probably in the third century A.D. The colonnade was added as a decorative screen about a century 025after the original construction. (Noting this function, we may now refer to it as the colonnade screen.) The first pool, which we see through the colonnade screen, was part of the original bath complex. This pool—built for relaxing—probably contained comfortably warm mineral water, the first stage of the therapeutic course of baths.

The pool itself is over 50 feet long, 27 feet wide and is paved with finely finished stone slabs. The bather could enter the pool on any side by three steps leading into the water. The pool is not quite four feet deep.

After first seeing the pool through the colonnade screen, the bather could descend by two steps through the colonnade screen. The higher area is known as a 028podium. This elevated podium was paved with variously shaped pieces of white, gray and red marble slabs arranged in geometric patterns called opus sectile. The podium was surrounded on three sides by a massive wall of basalt stones still preserved to a height of nearly ten feet.

We call this large hall—consisting of the podium, the colonnade screen and the pool area—the Hall of Pillars because on its two long sides it is bordered by rows of huge pillars—not round columns but square pillars.

In the three spaces between the pillars on the western side of this hall were large bathtubs, each over 13 feet long. The narrow wall at the end of the Hall of Pillars contained niches called aediculae (singular aedicula). The wall of the hall at this point has been preserved to a height of more than 25 feet, so the aediculae themselves are completely preserved. Such an arrangement of three niches, generally located near the main entrance to the bath complex, is quite common in Roman thermae.

Originally each niche housed a statue—possibly Aesculapius, the god of medicine, in the center aedicula, and on either side, Hygieia, the goddess of health. Since aediculae at other sites held statues, we could reasonably assume that the aediculae served this same function at Hammat Gader. Moreover, at Hammat Gader we actually found part of one of these statues. Unfortunately, not enough was preserved to identify the statue with any certainty as Aesculapius. It appears to be a man with a toga draped over his left shoulder.

From the stone debris on the floor, it is evident that the Hall of Pillars was covered by a huge limestone vault, as in the public baths built in Rome under Caracalla and Diocletian, also in the third century A.D. From what remained of the vault at Hammat Gader, it was clear that it stood at least 45 feet above the pool floor. To appreciate how tall this vault actually was, imagine a vault that towered another 20 feet over the arch of the colonnade screen!

Many pieces of glass mosaic were found on the floor of the room, which attest to the richness of the decoration of the upper part of the vault walls and of the ceiling. The broken pieces of windowpane we found in the debris indicate that there were windows in the upper sections of the walls. The effect was doubtless magnificent.

From the other side of the pool area, the bather could walk between the pillars to the next room, a huge hall we call the Hall of Inscriptions because so many inscriptions were found here. Many of these were found in our last season—in October 1983. In all, 35 inscriptions were uncovered. They are all dedicatory inscriptions in Greek that begin with the well-known formula, “In this holy place will be remembered … ” Then comes the name of the dedicant, and the city he came from or his noble title.

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The dedicants were no doubt wealthy donors to the baths whose therapeutic effects had cured their diseases or alleviated their discomforts.

The Hall of Inscriptions was also part of the original bath complex built in the third century A.D. At that time it contained a large pool (about 45 feet long and 27 feet wide). It too was probably a warm pool, like the one in the Hall of Pillars, with which the bather could begin his or her therapeutic course. In the Byzantine period (fifth to sixth centuries), however, this pool was filled with earthen debris and covered by a marble floor. The dedicatory inscriptions were found on the marble floor covering the old pool.

Although a principal attraction of the baths was the medicinal value imputed to the hot, mineral-rich waters, there were also other attractions. These are reflected in the mythological names given to the various springs. According to Eunapius, one spring was named for Eros, the Greek god of love. Another spring was called Anteros, for the god of mutual love, who punished those who did not reciprocate love.

Epiphanius, the fourth-century monk, described the colorful atmosphere that could be found at Hammat Gader, suggesting that more went on there than simply therapeutic bathing:

A festive gathering took place at Hammat Gader annually. For several days people from all over came to bathe and wash away their afflictions. But there too the Devil sets his snares … since men and women bathe together.²

From the far end of the Hall of Pillars, through the short wall, one passes to a small room containing a small pool. We suspect that this pool was for lepers—hoping for a cure from the dread disease. We call this pool the Lepers’ Pool. Actually, however, the disease referred to as leprosy in both the Old and New Testament was not the disease we call leprosy today, but psoriasis,³ an irritating skin disease that often covers large parts of the body and even today is sometimes considered incurable. We believe that it was from psoriasis that the bathers sought relief in the Lepers’ Pool.

The room containing the Lepers’ Pool has a number of entrances to the rooms which connect with it on three sides, and therefore it must also have functioned as a kind of passageway. But the pool itself is located in a separate architectural unit whose entrances could be closed off.

The sixth-century pilgrim Antoninus of Piacenza visited Hammat Gader and left us this description:

We went to a city called Gadara, which is Gibeon, and there, three miles from the city, there are hot springs called the Baths of Elijah. Lepers are cleansed there and have their meals from the inn there at public expense. The baths fill in the evening. In front of the basin is a large tank. When it is full, all the gates are closed, and they are sent in through a small door with lights and incense and sit in the tank all night. They fall asleep, and the person who is going to be cured sees a vision. When he has told it, the springs do not flow for a week. In one week he is cleansed.⁴

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This description conforms in considerable detail to the bathing installations exposed in the small room containing the Lepers’ Pool. Among the unusual finds in this room were scores of complete pottery lamps, typical of the third and fourth centuries A.D. They are all very similar in style, and all lack the soot which characterizes a lamp after use. Perhaps these lamps were intended to be used in some midnight ritual by “lepers” hoping for a cure. Or maybe they were placed at the pool’s edge. The evidence is intriguing, to say the least. Certainty of interpretation will surely continue to elude us.

Leprosy (or psoriasis) was not the only disease thought to be alleviated by the hot, mineral-rich water. Everything from minor aches and pains to blindness was thought to be curable by the combination of religious ritual and therapeutic waters. Thousands upon thousands of people came to Hammat Gader in hope of a cure. As early as the third century, Origen, the well-known Christian father, referred in his commentary on John (6:14) to the bath complex at Hammat Gader. He called it “famous.” Eusebius too (in the fourth century) spoke of the hot springs at Hammat Gader.

People came from all over the Roman world, often in groups. The philosopher Iamblichus, for example, came with his disciples from Athens, as we learn from Eunapius. Different springs were associated with various traditions of miracles and other supernatural events.

The most important of the therapeutic baths was the hot bath. At Hammat Gader there were two hot baths. Both of the pools for hot baths are oval. The larger oval pool is also in an oval room that we call the Oval Hall; the smaller oval pool is in a rectangular room.

As is natural in most hot baths, the hot pools are located adjacent to the hot spring in the corner of the bath complex. An underground conduit over three feet deep and a foot wide supplied the oval pools with hot spring water. When this conduit reached the large oval pool, it branched out into a channel that continued on to the Hall of Inscriptions to supply it too with hot water.

The water from the hot spring of the bath complex is extremely hot—126° F (52° C). This is too hot to take straight—even in the hot pools. In the large oval pool, in order to cool the water, a system of lead pipes and marble fountains was arranged around the pool so that cold water could be channeled into the pool from one of the other springs flowing on the site.

Bathing in the hot pools was brief and solely for medicinal purposes—the high mineral content prohibited a long stay in the water. The size of the Oval Hall indicates it was designed to handle huge numbers of people. The many openings into and out of the hall facilitated a constant flow of bathers.

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The Oval Hall is over 77 feet long and over 38 feet wide. In the third century, the Roman foot equaled 29.5 cm. Accordingly, the Oval Hall measures exactly 80 Roman feet by 40 Roman feet.

In the short wall of the Oval Hall facing the outside of the building, there were three high, arched windows. The central window was over 17 feet high. On either side was a lower arched window about 9 feet high. The effect of the three arched windows was similar to the familiar Roman triumphal arch.

In the four corners of the Oval Hall were semicircular bathing niches where separate tubs were placed. In one niche we found the remains of complicated filling and draining pipes for both hot and cold water.

Some of the well-finished stone slabs paving the floor of the large oval pool had been broken. We lifted these in order to see the foundation on which the floor had been laid. The virgin soil in this area would have been quite porous and unstable. When we lifted the floor, we discovered that the builders had laid a foundation over 40 inches thick on which to lay the stone floor paving. The 40-inch foundation consisted of stones of different sizes and extremely hard gray mortar, preventing both subsidence and water seepage.

A wide doorway connects the Oval Hall with the room containing the small oval pool. After a dip in the large oval pool, the bather could, if he or she wished, move into the still hotter small oval pool. Here, too, however, the water was cooled by a series of fountains. Surprisingly enough, the smaller oval pool is the later one. It dates to the Byzantine period (fifth to sixth centuries). Originally, the hot bath in this room was built in a rectangular shape in the third century—at the same time as the large oval pool. Behind the small oval pool was still another pool—a small round one almost 14 feet in diameter.

The space within the complex containing the hot spring itself is of special interest. A rectangular pool was built around the outlet of the hot spring. On one side of this pool a round tank was constructed about 12.5 feet in diameter. The tank was built of long basalt slabs vertically laid in the muddy soil. Special effort was made to seal the joints between the slabs with unusual interlocking joints like tongue in groove. This arrangement was probably necessary to withstand the pressure that insured the flow of the spring’s water to the various parts of the thermae.

After immersing in the hot pools, the bathers would refresh themselves in the huge open-air pool in the room we call the Hall of Fountains. This rectangular hall, 100 feet long and 45 feet wide, encloses the largest pool in the entire bath complex. This pool was probably a swimming pool open to the sky. Its waters no doubt provided 037bathers welcome relaxation after their immersion in the increasingly hot water of the other pools in the bath complex.

The walls of the Hall of Fountains were preserved in places to a height of over 17 feet. Into each of the long walls, five niches were built—a semicircular niche in the center of each wall and two rectangular niches on either side. The two central niches were covered by half-domes. A similar symmetrical arrangement of niches, though along the length and width of the hall, was found in the hall containing the main pool of the Roman health spa at Bath in southwestern England, which dates from the first to second centuries A.D. Indeed, the Hall of Fountains at Hammat Gader and the main hall at Bath were probably planned and built from a common blueprint.⁵

The most impressive finds in the Hall of Fountains were 32 marble fountains installed around the rim of the pool.⁶ Most of the fountains were found in situ and line the sides of the pool. The fountains differ in size but are similar in shape, each resembling a small altar. On each fountain, on the side facing the pool, was a molded human or animal head from whose mouth water spouted into the pool. Such fountains were common, as we know from the general discussion of public fountains in the Tosefta^b (Aboda Zara 6, 6). The fountains were probably installed during the fifth century A.D. after the pool had been in use for several centuries. It must have been an impressive sight on a warm summer day with all 32 fountains spouting cool water.

In the entrance corridor we found a collection of human faces carved in marble. They were heads that once adorned the fountains in the Hall of Fountains. Unfortunately, they had been chopped off with a hammer or chisel and mutilated by iconoclasts in the Moslem period.

The Hall of Fountains also contained a number of inscriptions. But these were not ordinary inscriptions. Emperors and rulers had their inscriptions installed here in the largest hall of the complex, easily seen and fully lit by the sun, where bathers came to relax after the therapeutic course of baths.

The earliest and most important inscription is the Eudocia inscription. Eudocia was the wife of the Byzantine emperor Theodosius II (408 A.D.–450 A.D.). She lived in Jerusalem. Written in Greek on a large marble slab embedded in the floor of the Hall of the Fountains, the Eudocia inscription consists of 17 lines. The first line contains the name of Eudocia herself together with her royal titles. The inscription is in the form of a poem extolling the hot springs and the baths.

It reads as follows:

Of the Empress Eudocia

In my life many and infinite wonders have I seen

But who, however many his mouths, could proclaim, O noble Clibanus,

Your strength, having been born a worthless mortal? But rather

It is just that you be called a new fiery ocean,

Paean and life source, provider of sweet streams.

From you is born the infinite swell, here one, there another,

On this side boiling, but there in turn cold and tepid. You pour forth your beauty into four tetrads of springs.

Indian and Matrona, Repentinus, Elijah the Holy, Antoninus the Good, dewy Galatia and

Hygieia herself, the large warm (baths) and the small warm (baths),

The Pearl, the old Clibanus, Indian, and also another Matrona, Briara and the Nun, and the (spring) of the Patriarch.

For those in pain your mighty strength (is ever constant).

But (I will sing) of god, famous for wisdom …

For the benefit of men and …⁷

Other inscriptions refer to the construction or reconstruction of the baths. Apparently, an earthquake⁸ during the Byzantine period destroyed or badly damaged parts of the thermae. During the reign of Emperor Anastasius (end of the fifth century), as we learn from the inscriptions, the thermae were in part rebuilt.

Several inscriptions mention a certain Alexandros from Caesarea, a governor of Beisan (Beth-Shean, Scythopolis), who built two round buildings we have not yet found.

The latest inscription is dated 662 A.D., in the Moslem period, placed in the wall of the Hall of Fountains by Mu‘awiya, the founder of the Umayyad dynasty. Apparently, he too rebuilt the thermae following an earthquake:

In the days of ‘Abd Allah Mu‘awiya, the commander of the faithful, the hot baths of the people there were saved and rebuilt by ‘Abd Allah son of Abuasemos (Abu Hasim) the Counsellor, on the fifth of the month of December, on the second day, in the sixth year of the indiction, in the year 726 of the colony, according to the Arabs the 42nd year, for the healing of the sick, under the care of Joannes, the official of Gadara.⁹

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Although from the Moslem period, the inscription is written in Greek and opens with the sign of the cross, reflecting the religious pluralism of this Moslem ruler.

Ancient sources, such as the Greek geographer Strabo, indicate that as late as the first century B.C. the area of Hammat Gader was uninhabited. According to Strabo, “At Gadaris, also, there is noxious lake water; and when animals taste it, they lose their hair and hoof and horns.”¹⁰

Apparently in the second century A.D., the people of Gadara, a city of the Decapolis, cleared the area of the springs. From the mid-second century onward, Hammat Gader is described several times in the Talmud^c and Midrashim^d as a bustling settlement with stores, inns, and communal facilities. The thermae were evidently constructed late in the second century A.D. The evidence from the literary sources corresponds perfectly with the independent chronology established by the archaeological finds. The Hall of Fountains probably dates to the second century. In the next century, other halls were added. In 363 A.D. a famous earthquake devastated the area. In a recently discovered Syriac manuscript, which is apparently a late copy of a letter attributed to Cyril, the Bishop of Jerusalem, Cyril names the towns destroyed by the earthquake, including “the Spring of Gader,” Ayna degadar.¹¹ As we traced the many rebuildings of the thermae in our excavations, we were able to attribute much of this work to the repair of damage caused by this fourth-century earthquake. The people of Hammat Gader took advantage of the damage caused by the earthquake to beautify and embellish the bathhouse complex. By the end of the fourth century, as we noted at the beginning of this article, the Greek biographer Eunapius wrote, referring to Hammat Gader: “In Syria, there are thermae that in all the Roman world can be compared only to those at Baiae [at Naples].”¹²

The baths were abandoned sometime in the ninth or early tenth century. The tenth-century Moslem writer 039Al-Muqaddasi tells us: “The people of Tiberias say that the waters [of Hammat Gader] were, in the past, surrounded by buildings, each one of which was devoted to treating a different illness.”¹³

From the tenth century to the founding of the state of Israel in 1948, squatters often lived in the remains.

Who built this magnificent bath complex—Romans, Jews or someone else? The answer is, no doubt, that the local Semitic population of non-Jews built the baths of local basalt. Obviously, the local population was heavily imbued with Roman culture. This comes as no surprise. As we noted above, Gader (Gadara) was one of the cities of the Decapolis.^e

Although Jews did not build the baths, they surely used them, as we learn from the Talmud. In the Byzantine period, Christian pilgrims also came here, combining their holy mission with the pleasures of the bath. Interestingly enough, the use of the bath by Christians and Jews apparently led to the baths being renamed in the Byzantine period. Then it was called the Baths of Elijah—presumably because Elijah was a Gileadite and Hammat Gader is in ancient Gilead.

The thermae or bath complex did not exist in isolation. It was part of an entire community—a city. The sacred spring, the therapeutic baths and the cultic theater 040offered visitors a combination of religious, medical and social facilities.

For the Jews of the city, there was a beautiful synagogue with an elaborate mosaic floor. This synagogue was excavated in the 1930s by E. L. Sukenik, father of Yigael Yadin. In 1982, excavation below the mosaic floor revealed at least two earlier synagogue floors. At one corner of the synagogue, a layer beneath the earliest synagogue floor showed evidence of settlement at the time of the Second Temple (first century B.C. to first century A.D.)¹⁴

If there is some doubt as to who built the baths in ancient times, there is no doubt as to who bathes here today. Visitors from all over Israel and abroad flock to an open-air pool a few hundred feet from the ancient thermae to enjoy the waters that many people still claim are therapeutic. A major tourist attraction, the hot water pool is now in the midst of a beautiful verdant park. There are restaurants and picnic tables and facilities for dressing and showering. But the modern comforts cannot match the elegance of the Roman thermae we excavated.

According to the Greek biographer Eunapius, the second most beautiful bath complex in the entire Roman Empire during the fourth century A.D. was located in, of all places, Palestine—at a site known as Hammat Gader.1 Hammat Gader lies just five miles southeast of the Sea of Galilee in a huge crater-like depression at the foot of the Golan Heights. It is a beautiful site surrounded by green mountains, near the banks of the Yarmuk River. The location is important. Hammat Gader lies in the Great Rift, which extends north from Africa and runs through the Red Sea, up the […]