Aperçu
Bath lies in a curve of the River Avon in Somerset, England, where three natural hot springs emerge at a constant 45°C — the only geothermal springs in Britain. The Romans encountered a Celtic cult already established around the spring, worshipping the local goddess Sulis. They founded the settlement Aquae Sulis ('waters of Sulis') in the 60s CE, identified the local goddess with Minerva, and constructed a monumental bath-and-temple complex that functioned for over four centuries as the most elaborate spa facility in Roman Britain.
The centrepiece was the Sacred Spring: a massive lead-lined reservoir 12 m × 8 m, fed directly by the thermal waters at a rate of approximately 1.3 million litres per day. Around the spring the Romans built a temple precinct with a pediment bearing a carved Gorgon-Medusa face (with male rather than female features — a deliberate hybrid of Sulis and Minerva), a classical temple on a raised podium, and an altar. Adjacent to the precinct was the Great Bath: an open-air lead-lined bathing pool 24 m × 9 m, originally vaulted with a barrel ceiling, where bathers could swim in water heated to approximately 40°C. Additional heated rooms (caldarium, tepidarium, frigidarium) extended the complex, which grew substantially in the 2nd and 3rd centuries.
More than 130 pewter and lead curse tablets (defixiones) have been found in the spring — the largest collection in Britain. Pilgrims and visitors threw them into the spring after inscribing petitions to Sulis-Minerva, mostly requesting punishment of thieves who had stolen personal items. The tablets name individuals by full name, providing extraordinary evidence for the mixed Romano-Celtic population: Gaulish, Latin, and Celtic names appear together. The gilded bronze head of Minerva — found in 1727, before systematic excavation — is the finest piece of Roman bronze surviving from Britain.