Roman Baths Museum

Some of the class went to Bath on our research day today. For a related post about Bath, please click here.

The site of the Roman Baths had been sacred even before the Romans arrived in Britain. The hot springs found in Bath are the only ones in England and the rest of the United Kingdom. For this reason, ancient peoples used to come there and offer sacrifices and honor the gods of the spring. When the Romans arrived, they dedicated the baths to the goddess, Minerva. The Roman Baths Museum does a good job of informing visitors about the area's history and is one of the most well-preserved ancient Roman spas in the world.


The columns and statues that a visitor sees today around the Great Bath are not actually an original part of the ancient spa. These are Victorian additions. The water in the Great Bath is green because of the algae reaction to the sunlight. In Roman times, the Great Bath would have been covered and the water would have been a normal colour.

My favourite display at the museum was the "Objects from the spring" area. Some are things you might expect like coins. Over 12,00 ancient coins have been found there. The objects that really interested me were the messages offered to Minerva. Many of these were curses asking the goddess to punish those who had harmed the writer or his or her families. Many more curses than prayers have been found in the spring.

I was disappointed that the display about the signet rings that I had seen in 2003 had been replaced by another display. In the water, many signet rings slipped off fingers or the jewels' fastenings were loosened by the hot water and dropped into the water. Some of the carvings on those were just amazing. My favourite was a picture of a man holding a mare and her foal.

Here is a picture of a hippocamp mosaic.


And here we are sitting on the edge of the Great Bath.