Shall we go «Ad Aquas»? Putting Roman healing spas on the map

Bathing constructions are currently one of the better preserved and studied monuments of the Roman Empire. Nevertheless, there remains a significant research gap as to the nature of water exploited within. The mineral-medicinal waters, in fact, conditioned not only the location, but also the functio...

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Detalhes bibliográficos
Autor: González Soutelo, Silvia
Tipo de documento: artigo
Data de publicação:2019
País:España
Recursos:Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Repositório:Biblos-e Archivo. Repositorio Institucional de la UAM
Idioma:inglês
OAI Identifier:oai:repositorio.uam.es:10486/691941
Acesso em linha:http://hdl.handle.net/10486/691941
https://dx.doi.org/10.5944/etfi.12.2019.25939
Access Level:Acceso aberto
Palavra-chave:Healing spas
Ancient thermalism
Roman Empire
Thermal architecture
Arqueología
Descrição
Resumo:Bathing constructions are currently one of the better preserved and studied monuments of the Roman Empire. Nevertheless, there remains a significant research gap as to the nature of water exploited within. The mineral-medicinal waters, in fact, conditioned not only the location, but also the function and, consequently, the architecture of these features. Hence, one of the main objectives of our current study is to highlight some of the main architectonic and functional characteristics of these bathing complexes from a selection of the better preserved and/or better documented spas using mineral-medicinal waters in the Roman Empire (henceforth referred to as healing or thermal spas/baths). This paper thus presents an initial distribution map, reviews the current state of research on this subject as well as some of the drawbacks to their study