East_Bath_and_Byzantine_Church

The remains: the Entrance Area

Next to the Doric Building is the entrance to the Byzantine Church, which took over the site of the 1st century AD East Bath. At the entrance to the church, an inscription can be seen that announces the gift of the bath by a certain Tiberios Klaudios Menelaos.

The inscription reads (with the preserved part in black):

The East Bath & Byzantine Church

Plan of the Byzantine Church with surroundings.

(J. Blid)

[ΘEOIΣ ΣEBAΣTOIΣ KAI ΔII ΛABPAIYNΔΩI ΣΩT]HPI KAI TΩ ΔHMΩI [TIBEPIOΣ KΛAYDIOΣ XPYΣAOPOΣ YIOΣ KYPEINA M]ENEΛAOΣ TO BAΛANHON [KAI AΛΛA (?) EK TΩN IΔIΩN ANEΘHK]EN

[To Gods Augustus and Zeus Labraiyndos Saviour] and the people [Tiberios Klaudios, son of Chrysaor, of the tribus Quirina] Menelaos [dedicated] the bath [and the other objects (?) by his own means]

The floor of the apse from the north.

1.South Propylon 2.Doric Building 3.East Bath & Byzantine Church 4.East Propylon 5.Hypostyle Structure 6.North wall of Propylon area

It has been possible to restore the missing parts of this text thanks to another inscription, cut on a base at the north wall of the church, in which this gift from him is celebrated by the town assembly of Mylasa. The East Bath, which mainly lies to the south of the Byzantine Church, has only been partly investigated. Its hot bath (sudatorium), heated by a heating chamber (hypocaust) below the floor, lies immediately east of the Doric Building. Its floor was resting on round brick pillars, and an opening in the wall north of the heating chamber shows that its underground furnace (praefurnium) was located where the south-western room of the church is now placed. Two other rooms of the bath immediately south of the church have also been partly traced. It appears that the northern wall of the bath was reused as the western part of the church’s south wall.

The church was built in the late 4th or early 5th century. This is indicated both by the finds and details of the architecture, which is reminiscent of contemporaneous Syrian churches. It is interesting to note that the church is placed close to a former Roman bath, a location that may have been chosen due to the presence of water pipes, which could be reused both for the baptizing and for the cleansing act before entering the church.

There may have been two towers on the western front of the church, one on each side of the entrance. In the nave there is a paving of white marble slabs. An uncommon scheme is the lack of inner columns or free-standing piers. Along the side walls of the nave are ten pilasters, some of which still preserve moulded marble revetments of Marmor Phrygium.

Marble revetment fragments of Marmor Phrygium (pavanozzetto).

The pilasters seem to have carried arches attached to the side walls, similar to the system used in Roman public baths in Anatolia. They probably also supported beams between the side walls, on which a flat ceiling was resting.

The eastern end terminates in an apse, which was covered with a half-dome in brick, and two small side-rooms. The apse is enclosed by a straight rear wall. Excavation has brought to light a water drain in the centre of the apse.