Daily bread
It is time to cross the Road of the River Mouth. On the north part of the street we encounter a large stretch of wall belonging to the Baths of the Trinacria to the south (the baths were named after the symbol of Sicily in a mosaic). It probably fell on the street during an earthquake. When buildings catch fire, or when the beams supporting the floors in an abandoned building rot away, the walls tend to fall inward. During the vibrations of an earthquake, with the beams still intact, they tend to be pushed outward.
The stretch of wall of the baths, collapsed on the street.
Photo: Jan Theo Bakker.To the north of the street, the Baths are Mithras are a popular destination, because of its underground mithraeum with the statue of Mithras killing the bull, and the underground service area. The dim rooms where slaves took care of the water supply and heating system have recently been closed to the public however. Maybe that's for the better, because the corridors are dark, slippery and a bit scary. Two other points of interest are easily missed.
Immediately to the south of the baths is a very large oven, clearly for baking bread. It has an inside diameter of approximately 5.60 metres. The cupola was made of large tufa blocks. In the blocks grooves can be seen, testifying to a rotating grate on top of which the bread was placed. There is not a trace of a bakery in the neighbourhood, so apparently the bread was prepared elsewhere. Communal ovens for home-made bread are still in use in, for example, Morocco. It remains a mystery why such an oven was installed here, instead of a complete bakery.
Detail of the grooves in the tuff blocks of the cupola of the oven.
Photo: Jan Theo Bakker.The statue in the mithraeum is a copy, the original is in the museum. The head of the bull and the head and an arm of Mithras were found in a channel, together with small fragments of the statue that are ancient restorations. The statue stands upon a base of grey marble, the same kind of marble used for the restorations. Obviously a damaged statue had been acquired. The fragments must have been thrown in the channel by Christians, and it is probably not a coincidence that they erected a small edifice above and near the mithraeum. It was installed in the second half of the fourth or in the fifth century. It consists of an apse with two marble columns and simple capitals. On two other square columns the Christian monogram has been preserved. In the sides are vertical grooves, in which a wooden or metal fence was inserted. Nearby, on Via della Foce, fragments were found of the border of two curved tables or basins. Their function is not known. One had depictions of 16 to 18 philosophers, or apostles and martyrs, the other was decorated with fishes.
The Christian structure, seen from the south.
Photo: Klaus Heese.
