Into a Roman bath

 
The Roman baths in Bearsden have been on M “bucket list “for some time.
So this afternoon we paid a visit.
 
 
Bearden is a wealthy suburb on the outskirts of Glasgow- the last place you would expect to find the remains of a Roman bathhouse and it was only discovered and excavated in the 1970s.
 
 
This was built for the comfort of Roman soldiers who manned the forts along Antonine Wall, the furthest point north of the Roman Empire in AD140.
 
It offers a fascinating insight into the daily lives of the soldiers with its under floor heating and series of hot, cold, warm and steam rooms with a nearby latrine.
 ( Just like a modern health spa).
 
 A sewer ran from the latrine under the rampart and into the adjacent ditch.
 
Analysis of the "deposits" shows something of the Roman diet at Bearsden: ground wheat grain fragments, ground barley grain fragments (apparently used as "punishment rations" for soldiers), figs, coriander, opium poppy seeds, celery, hazel nuts, blackberry, raspberry and bilberry. It would seem that there was very little meat in the local diet.
 
On such a sparse diet one wonders how strong these men were to defend the Roman Empire.

 For more info about Undiscovered Scotland
link
http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/bearsden/romanbaths/index.html

(PS. Can anyone tell me why some of my links fail to work?)