Taking A Bath

THC follows all things Roman and according to the BBC it turns out that in Khenchela, Algeria there is a 1st century AD bath house that is still in active use although it did require repair several hundred years ago after an earthquake!

The BBC reporter notes:

"I had come to look at the Roman baths in Khenchela and had overlooked the fact that for many of the local population the attraction was not the ancient architecture or remarkable state of preservation but the fact there was a free and plentiful supply of hot water - still feeding into two open air baths.

The daily ritual of public bathing is still clearly alive and well in Khenchela.
In fact, as I stepped over the stretched legs and passed reclined bodies dangling their legs in the sea-green water, I got the impression nothing had really changed since the baths were constructed in the first century AD. Only the more recent Ottoman brickwork, the newly constructed changing room doors and the numerous brightly coloured plastic buckets gave the game away.

The important social function of a bathhouse has also been retained - family issues are discussed and resolved and jokes and stories are told to echoing laughter and the sound of a slapped thigh, back or hand."

Khenchela is near the Tunisian border and was part of the Roman province of either Africa or Numidia which was heavily Romanized and one of the richest areas of the Roman Empire.  The BBC article also contains this picture of the ruins of the nearby ancient city of Djemela.