--- title: "The Roman bath that went into the wine business" description: "Clean living gave way to productivity when a bathhouse near Antalya was refitted to crush grapes and olives" author: "Albion Grey" published: 2026-09-26T11:57:50Z modified: 2026-09-26T18:05:59Z url: https://rews.cc/a/the-roman-bath-that-went-into-the-wine-business-804a90 language: en tags: ["archaeology", "history", "turkey", "rome", "agriculture", "world"] publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)" --- # The Roman bath that went into the wine business *Clean living gave way to productivity when a bathhouse near Antalya was refitted to crush grapes and olives* By Albion Grey · September 26, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/the-roman-bath-that-went-into-the-wine-business-804a90 ## In brief - Archaeologists found that a Roman bath at Antiochia ad Cragum, near Gazipaşa in Antalya Province, was refitted as a production complex - A former cold-water pool became a roughly 2,900-litre processing vat, possibly where trodden grape juice was collected - A trapetum olive mill survived, and a marble architrave was recut into a press bed with five outlets - The authors suspect wine (possibly passum) and olive oil were made in separate areas; residue tests were inconclusive - The building later held 10th–11th-century burials and coin hoards of more than 3,000 coins from the 1620s or later Britons convert churches into flats; the late-antique residents of Antiochia ad Cragum had the same instinct on a grander scale. Archaeologists working at the city, near modern Gazipaşa in Antalya Province on Türkiye’s southern coast, have shown that a Roman public bath — cold rooms, heated rooms, marble linings, mosaics — was comprehensively refitted as an agricultural factory, very likely turning out wine and olive oil where citizens once soaked. The findings appear in the Journal of Roman Archaeology. Antiochia ad Cragum was founded by Antiochus IV of Commagene during the Julio-Claudian period, overlooking the Mediterranean, with fertile hillsides, freshwater springs and sea routes to wider markets. The building at the centre of the discovery, known as the Small Bath, stands roughly 90 metres outside the city gate. Built around the late second or early third century AD, it once offered marble-lined surfaces and mosaic floors patterned in red, black and white. Its later occupants were opportunists, but tidy ones. Emlyn Dodd and Leticia R. Rodriguez, the study’s authors, identified modifications in at least four areas: new walls, channels, collection vats and heavy machinery inserted into the old bathing rooms and central hall. The conversion was eminently practical — the surviving roof sheltered the work, while a nearby spring and the original cistern kept supplying water for production and cleaning. Rather than build from scratch, the newcomers let the bath’s plumbing earn its keep. ## From plunge pool to vat The showpiece sits in Room 3, where a former cold-water pool became a processing vat holding approximately 2,900 litres. The marble-lined steps stayed in place; the interior was simply recoated with waterproof mortar. Next door, the mosaic floor is conspicuously worn, above all near a channel cut through the wall that splits into two branches feeding separate collection vats. The arrangement closely resembles wineries elsewhere in the eastern Mediterranean: the researchers suggest workers treaded grapes on the mosaic, letting the juice run through, while the heaviest wear may mark where stone rollers crushed dried grapes. That last technique would suit the making of passum, the raisin wine associated with ancient Cilicia and mentioned by classical authors — though its production here has not been conclusively established. The twin vats may have sorted the juice by grade, the smaller basin catching the prized first run-off. The central hall told a parallel story. There the archaeologists found pieces of a trapetum, the Roman olive-crushing mill, including an intact grinding stone and about half of its stone basin, parked in an eastern section newly walled off from the rest. Beyond lay a substantial press bed, a marble counterweight and a slot designed to take the wooden beam of a lever-and-screw press. Frugality sharpened the engineering: a marble architrave had been recut into the press bed, complete with a slightly pear-shaped channel and five outlets to carry off the squeezed liquid, and another architectural block had been reshaped into a heavy counterweight sunk in a hole cut clean through the mosaic floor — a lowered position that increased the press’s force. A trapetum is strong proof that olives were crushed; the press itself is less talkative, since similar rigs also squeezed grapes. Wine and oil come at different seasons, so the same tackle may have done double duty. The most plausible reading, the authors say, is that wine and olive oil were made in separate areas, with equipment possibly shared. Organic-residue analysis of the vats returned inconclusive results, the samples fouled by environmental contamination — so some rooms keep their secrets. The bath was no eccentric. Earlier digs at Antiochia ad Cragum have unearthed a winery built into the podium of an imperial temple, kilns installed inside the Great Bath and olive-oil equipment scattered across the town — a late-antique economy quietly colonising monumental structures. The new facility is the largest-capacity agricultural processing plant yet recorded at the city, and several of its components survived in their original positions. The region was well suited to the trade: south-facing slopes, well-drained soils and springs suited grapes and olives, while the coast plugged producers into Mediterranean markets where Cilician wine was known. Studies of locally made amphorae suggest the goods circulated widely. Why the bath lost its bathers is guesswork. Shapur I’s invasion of coastal Cilician cities in the AD 260s may have done for it — the building sat awkwardly outside the walls — though the exact circumstances remain uncertain. Later lives piled up regardless. Human remains in several rooms point to burials radiocarbon-dated to the tenth and eleventh centuries AD, and two coin hoards holding more than 3,000 coins — predominantly silver, alongside bronze and gold examples — were deposited in the 1620s or later. For Dodd and Rodriguez, the conversion bespeaks deliberate investment rather than squatting: rooms replumbed, blocks recarved, heavy stone machinery hauled into place by people who clearly expected the enterprise to pay. Their bathhouse had not fallen so much as been redeployed. A building that failed as a place to get clean thrived for centuries as a place to get paid — which, empire after empire, has usually been the more durable function.