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Neolithic Settlement
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Rhiannon
5291 posts

Edited Jun 06, 2013, 08:25
Re: Neolithic Settlement
Jun 05, 2013, 23:08
I'm with Tiompan here, I'm not sure what evidence you'll accept.

The hot springs were already there when the Romans turned up, and they were already dedicated to some local deity called Sulis. The Romans recognised a parallel between Sulis and their own goddess Minerva. Which is the type of thing they did repeatedly across their empire, there's plenty of evidence for that with other deities.

Yes the romans liked their baths for some socialising and r+r, it was part of being civilised. But there weren't bath houses at Bath when the romans turned up. It was just a warm swamp. And what's more, it's virtually the only warm swamp in the whole of Britain. Don't you think Sulis was something other than a goddess of lounging about in a warm sulphury swamp for fun? something a bit more unusual than that, to match the unusualness of the eggy swamp?

Whatever the original qualities of Sulis, the site was already considered special for some reason, because it had that goddess looking after it. And Minerva was patched on when the romans turned up. There must have been some overlap at least to start with, surely. Or else they would have chosen a different roman goddess? And roman baths in general didn't get special goddesses associated with them? Weren't they just baths?

The suite of buildings at Bath might have evolved into something mostly about swimming and relaxing and socialising. But we do know from artefacts that have been found there that people were throwing in votive objects. So the sacredness must have persisted. Like this one
http://www.romanbaths.co.uk/explore/Object_Details.aspx?objectID=batrm_1983_13_a_1
and that's about healing isn't it. That's an object, about healing.
ok there are objects that seem to be about other things, like an altar that reads "To the goddess Sulis for the welfare and safety of Aufidius Maximus, centurion of the Sixth Legion Victrix"
But there are some about healing specifically.
Is that not evidence?
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