Image Details

Yiftah Shale

A large roman bathhouse, shown in a computer-generated model, was excavated in the area southwest of the Temple Mount. The bathhouse foundation rests on debris from the Roman destruction of 70 C.E., and its layout, from cold to warm to hot and back again, suggests that it is a second-century C.E. military bathhouse.

The location of the sodatorium (sweat room) situated on an outcrop of the main buildings also helps date the structure to the second century C.E. The three pools in the frigidarium stand out because this feature did not emerge before the second century C.E. In the tepidaria (warm rooms) and caldaria (hot rooms), the bricks in the hypocaust floor often displayed stone impressions of the Xth Legion. All these features help identify the bathhouse as belonging to the Roman military.