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House
of Cantaber The baths of the house » Back »
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The baths of the house The baths of the House of Cantaber present in its original phase all the rooms that characterizes the public thermal complexes. A wide room has functions of dressing-room,is reached by a portico that unites the house to the balneum. This first room allows the entrance in the frigidarium in which an apse alveus of cold water was built, entered by two lateral stairs. The dress-room serves as connection element among the cold and warm zones. This last one is composed by a tepidarium of small dimensions, perhaps because it serves just as first contact with the warm atmosphere. From this room one entered the double caldarium, formed by two square and apse atmospheres to the West. The South caldarium has an alveus of lukewarm water. The heating system of this building should present, in its first phase, some difficulties of operation, maybe due to the high number of furnaces built . In a contiguous space to the South caldarium three furnaces are located, one for the alveus, another for the caldarium and a third that heats the tepidarium; because the furnaces of the caldarium are built in such a way that they impeded the circulation of the hot air to the tepidarium, had to be built a specific furnace for this last one room. A fourth furnace heats up the second caldarium placed to Northwest. The complex occupies a total area of 14 m x 18 m (in a total of 252 m2 ). At the end of the III century or the beginning of the IV century, the house of Cantaber suffers deep changes in its structure, in consequence of the construction of the late-imperial wall. The thermal sector is also affected, increasing its area and affecting mainly the disposition of furnaces, the heating system and the suspensurae. This intervention demonstrates the activity of repair and reconstruction of this type of buildings, that request a continuous maintenance due to its specific functionality. In this second phase the dressing-room is augmented and enriched with a second alveus of cold water, of square plan. The great remodelling happens in the heated rooms with the transformation of the tepidarium, in an hexagonal room. The double caldarium is transformed in one, taking advantage of part of the previous west caldarium and with an apse of smaller dimensions; its North wall is also part of an hexagon. This expansion allows the enlargement of the warm space and the construction of what can be interpreted as an sudatory apse. The heating of these spaces is totally remodelled. The caldarium properly maintains the furnace of the alveus, but is transformed in a corridor furnace, where a boiler will have been placed. The second furnace is now protected by a lateral wall. The furnace of the tepidarium, is finally closed for it is no longer useful. The sudatory is heated up by a great furnace placed Northwest of complex. All the suspensurae adapts to the new architecture, forming a concentric plant that allows a radial circulation of the hot air in the zone of the caldarium. This is perhaps one of the better known images of Conimbriga. The pavement is built, with imbrices put upon by a thick layer of opus signinum.  |
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