Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean (13.2001(2002))

MAREA

EGYPT

as in the entire southern part of the trench,
shards of window panes were found in
quantity, some of them still embedded in
plaster (cf. below, Figs. 2:8-9', 3 on pp. 67-
68). Some have plaster attached in such a
way that they must have been used as wall
revetment, imitating the mosaic decora-
tion so common in ancient architecture.
Few such finds have been noted in the
archaeological record to date5-1 and their
significance for studies of lighting in
public buildings of Late Antiquity cannot
be underestimated.
A stone wall joins at right angles the
parapet walls of pools R and M. Partly
uncovered this year, it presumably belongs
to another structure that was adjacent to
the bath on the east. North of this wall and
east of the bath, a rectangular pool (Y)
came to light. Explorations of the setting
for the foot of the washbasin (a second
labrurri) discovered last year brought to
light two lamps and a Byzantine coin.
A square pool (Z), measuring 1.30 m to
the side, fills the northeastern corner of the
building. Steps line its south side,
interrupted approximately in the middle
by a passage leading down into a sewage
channel (?). Imprints of slabs testify to
marble flooring inside the pool.
Twin pools X (1.84 by 1.37 m; 1.17 m
deep) and T (1.05 m deep), fitted into the
corners of the building at either end of the
west wall of the bath, reveal the same
design as pool Z. A passage cuts through
the steps, leading down into the town
sewage system. Three test pits were
excavated in line with the presumed
channel (Ql) draining the two pools. It
turned out to be 0.5 m wide and between

0.70 and 1.30 m high, built of stone
blocks and brick-vaulted where other
channels branch off (Fig. 10). In many
places there are thick deposits of boiler
scale on the walls. Branches strike off from
channel Ql, which is the widest, toward
the twin pools with steps, V and S (0.8 by
1.1 m) discovered this year. These two
pools, believed to be water storage
facilities (?), flanked the entrance to
chamber B. A third section reached the
threshold in the entrance to the apody-
terium (B), draining rainwater perhaps.
Clearing the cellar below this chamber in
the coming season should provide more


Fig. 10. Channel Ql, view from the south
(Photo T. Kalarus)

5) Similar finds of glass from Jerash and Jerusalem have been dated to the 4th-5th century, cf. C. H. Kraeling, Gerasa:
the city of the Decapolis (New Haven 1938), 546, pi. XXXVb; D. B. Harden, “Roman windowpanes from Jerash and later
parallels ', Iraq 6 (1939), 81; A. Engle, Light, Lamps and Windows in Antiquity, in: Readings in Glass History 20 (Jerusalem
1987), 79-94. For a detailed description of these finds, see the contribution by R. Kucharczyk in this volume.

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