Digging Malta

Andrew enrolled us in an archeological dig on Sunday morning, March 23.  Enrollment for the event through Heritage Malta filled up after 72 hours.  It was a hot ticket. To get to the site, we caught a 6:45am bus.  As I already explained that meant we were at the bus station, which is a 5 minute walk from our flat, 15 minutes early, just in case.  We had to change bus lines in the town of Mosta.  Mosta is a noteworthy town because a bomb dropped during WWII, came smashing through the giant dome on the village cathedral during church services.  Amazingly, or as commonly believed, it was an act of God that the bomb did not explode.  

 

Ghajn Tuffiha Site

We arrived at the Roman Bath site just a few minutes late, at 7:45am. We were given a thorough orientation by the lead archeologist, a bearded man in his 30s.  British troops discovered the site in 1929 while digging a trench to pipe water from a spring on the premises to their camp down the valley. According to Sir Themistocles Zematt, the first archeologist to study the site, the Roman Bath at Ghajn Tuffiha was in use 2000 years ago (dating back to 1 AD.)  A second group of archeologists dug on this site in the early 1980s but did not leave any written record of their activity resulting in a “disrupted” site. The old adage, “If you don’t write it down, it didn’t happen.” is not only true for medical charting but also archeology.  To protect the mosaics, roofed structures were erected in the 1990s.  Currently, funding from the EU allows for a comprehensive site exploration with plans to open the site to the public for viewing in the future. The previous excavation exposed a number of structures: a changing room, a hot bath room or caldarium connected to a wood burning fireplace, warm bath area or tepidarium, cold plunge bath or frigidarium, a large pool (where we were to dig), a garden and sitting rooms or cabanas around the pool and an 11 hole marble top latrine.

Me digging away.

 Roman houses had water supplied by lead pipes. The pipes were taxed based on their size.  As a result, many houses had only basic water supply.  Free (non-slave) Romans went to public baths daily. Roman baths were community gathering places that included exercise gym facilities much like our current sport clubs or health spas.  Not only did a Roman visit a bath to exercise and to cleanse himself, he or she also heard the latest news, political discussions and gossip. The cost to enter a bath was cheap.  Women paid more than men.  Women were designated morning bathing times and the men were designated time after their work day, in the early afternoon.  Emperors made laws that forbid women and men bathing together so obviously some mixed bathing occurred.  

A typical bath experience would begin by entering the changing room to disrobe and tipping a servant to watch over your clothes.  You may do a few exercises, then head to the tepidarium to warm up for the caldarium, which acted as a sauna.  In the caldarium, steam would remove grime from your body.  Then, servants would rub olive oil on you, remove it with a sickle shaped tool called a strigil, and perhaps give your body a massage.  You would then return to the tepidarium and/or plunge into the cold pool or frigidarium.  Following the cleansing, you would lounge around the pool or sit in one of the mosaic floored cabanas or relax around the garden and fountain.  At some time during your bathing experience you would use the communal toilet.  This was the best preserved area at our site.  There was a curious 4 inch trench that ran along the front of all the seats.  Our leader asked why we thought it was there.  I couldn’t figure it out. Perhaps, the Romans liked to soak their feet in water as they sat.   Instead of toilet paper, the Romans used sponges on sticks to wipe themselves. The trench is where the sponges were stored.  I know TMI for Roman hygiene.  It is precisely this, the lack of details in the written records about the everyday activities including self-care, that causes archeology to resemble detective work.

"Look what I found!"

Our task, after being given a bucket, scraper and broom was to remove 3-4 inches of dirt in the large pool area.  We separated any artifact that appeared man-made and handed the buckets of dirt up. The buckets were carried and dumped on the edge of the site.  We found numerous bits of pottery, 2 tile mosaic pieces along with plastic bits from the last 30 years that collected while the site was unattended.  Andrew did come up with two unique pieces; a black pottery fragment and a large 3" by 3" diamond shape walkway tile.  We worked from 8:30-10 and then 10:30-12.  Archeology work is harder than gardening. It is like extreme gardening.  Working on your hand and knees was tough on our mid-fifty year old bodies.  The sun peeked out but luckily went back into hiding so we weren’t roasting.  

Some of our goodies. Yes, I tossed in a few rocks to keep up with Andrew.

We left our fellow budding archeologist (4 others; one, a 13 year old boy celebrating his birthday at the dig as he loved history) and went to catch the bus to Golden Bay.  As it was the lighter Sunday bus schedule, we were waiting for a while. After seeing a tourist couple jogging by, we decided the beach couldn’t be too far and started walking down hill about a mile.  Not long after we bought some strawberries from a farmer, we came to Golden Bay.  We dined in one of the two beach cafes comparing our scraped up knuckles before heading back to Valletta on the bus.  Someone fell asleep on the hour ride.  Archeologists for a morning—that’s all our knees, backs and knuckles can take!

As this is an area of active research, I can't show you photos of the mosaics or latrine. For more information about the site, view the following links.

http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2014-03-17/news/still-discovering-things-about-the-ghajn-tuffieha-roman-baths-4289560580/ 

http://www.academia.edu/3473259/THE_REBACA_PROJECT_EXCAVATIONS_AT_THE_GHAJN_TUFFIEHA_ROMAN_BATHS_

MGARR_MALTA

Full moon rising over Malta.