Turkish Bath of Ancient Romans Discovered in Scottish Village

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6918, 25 May 1929, Page 2 (Supplement)

Turkish Bath of Ancient Romans Discovered in Scottish Village

Evidences of Military Life in Northern Fort Found in Excavations

EDINBURGH, April 27,

courtyard structure of daub and wattle on a timber frame. It had been destroyed by fire, rebuilt in stone and its sizo cou&idexably increased. Apparently the design proved to bo unnecessarily ambitious, for by and by tho southern portion.was demolished to make room for a suite of baths. All that would seem to have taken place it, the first period. With 'the opening of the second period, the plan, of tho baths was radically altered, and the south-western portion of the houso restored to its original purpose. In the third period the main innovation was the erection of an unusual apartment, evidently corresponding to a modern Turkish bath. The details of the various changes were exceedingly hard to follow, and some of them could never be determined with perfect certainty. But the exploration of the bath-house, and .a smaller one, afterwards discovered in the northeast corner of tho fort, and in all probability intended for tho use of tho rank and file, had been extraordinarily illuminating.

Further light was recently thrown on the Homan Fort at Mumrills, neaT Falkirk, and on the remains of Homan military bathing establishments when Sir George Macdonald reported on the conclusions reached by A. O. Curio and himself to the Society of Antiquaries here. Sir George Macdonald said there were sufficient indications that the site had originally been selected by Agricola in A.D. 80. The Agricolan fort had not been occupied for any length of time —perhaps for only a single winter, but its remarkable size sug'gcstcd that it had been the headquarters of the officer who was in general charge of the isthmus frontier. It seemed certain that the like honour fell to the lot of Mumrills in the second century, when tho Antouine wall was built. Tho commandant’s residence was laid out on a scale of amplitude to which no parallel had yet been found in Britain. The commandant’s house had a checkered history. In the first place it had been a spacious