{"id":13955,"date":"2025-10-21T12:28:15","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T16:28:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/?p=13955"},"modified":"2025-10-21T12:28:15","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T16:28:15","slug":"archaeologists-find-bishops-bathhouse-in-ancient-olympos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2025\/10\/archaeologists-find-bishops-bathhouse-in-ancient-olympos.html","title":{"rendered":"Archaeologists Find Bishop\u2019s Bathhouse in Ancient Olympos"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_13958\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-13958\" style=\"width: 1200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13958\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2025\/10\/Ancient-Bath_credit-Dikencomtr-Facebook.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-13958\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dikencomtr \/ Facebook<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Archeologists excavating Olympos, an ancient Lycian port city in the Turkish province of Antalya, uncovered a lavish bathhouse that was most likely used for the private use of the Byzantine bishop as well as a public service to locals. The site has been regularly excavated since 2006, leading to finds from the Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine periods. This year\u2019s excavation has already featured the discovery of a 5<sup>th<\/sup> century church that had an inscription that had been lost for over 1,000 years. The church\u2019s inscription reads, \u201cOnly those on the\u00a0righteous path\u00a0may enter here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Associate Professor G\u00f6k\u00e7en Kurtulu\u015f \u00d6zta\u015fk\u0131n of Pamukkale University, who leads the excavations, informed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.turkiyetoday.com\/culture\/ancient-bathhouse-unearthed-in-turkiyes-olympos-reveals-life-of-byzantine-bishop-3207884\"><em>Tukiye Today<\/em><\/a> that current work focuses on uncovering such structures as bathhouses and churches. The bathhouse uncovered during this most recent excavation dates to around the 5<sup>th<\/sup> or 6<sup>th<\/sup> century AD and is attached to the church bishop\u2019s private bathhouse, a rare luxury at the time. Speaking to <em>Anadolu Agency<\/em>\u00a0(<em>AA) <\/em>\u00d6zta\u015fk\u0131n, described the bathhouse as a \u201crather large and elaborate complex.\u201d It measures around 2,150 square feet, quite large for a bathhouse attached to a private residence.<\/p>\n<p>The bathhouse also has some impressive features given the time it was functioning. It sports a full heating system which involved a kullan (furnace) and wall heating installations. And while a private bathhouse might seem like quite the perk, \u00d6zta\u015fk\u0131n stressed that the bishop had particular civic duties as a steward of the city\u2019s resources. \u201cThe bathhouse was not only for the bishop\u2019s private use,\u201d said \u00d6zta\u015fk\u0131n \u201cIt had entrances both from the main street and from the house. On certain days of the week, the bishop allowed ordinary townspeople to use it free of charge, both for hygiene and for health purposes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While the bathhouse had a private entrance connecting it to the bishop\u2019s residence, it also featured outside doors accessible to the public. Such access would be quite a luxury to the general population, where such baths would be a rarity. The find offers a rare look into the day-to-day living of ancient Christian settlements as Christianity spread through the Middle East. Further excavations will continue in the area, as well as restoration efforts on the remnants of two sarcophagi, which had been smashed to pieces as part of the team\u2019s attempt to uncover remnants of the city\u2019s funerary monuments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Archeologists excavating Olympos, an ancient Lycian port city in the Turkish province of Antalya, uncovered a lavish bathhouse that was most likely used for the private use of the Byzantine bishop as well as a public service to locals. The site has been regularly excavated since 2006, leading to finds from the Hellenistic, Roman, and&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":516,"featured_media":13958,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Archaeologists Find Bishop\u2019s Bathhouse in Ancient Olympos<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Archaeologists in Turkey uncover a 1,500-year-old bishop\u2019s bathhouse in Olympos, offering rare insight into early Christian community life.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link 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