In Khenchela, a town in Algeria, there is an open-air Roman bath—incredibly, it is still being used today, 2000 years after it was first built.
BBC writer Edward Lewis recently visited this ancient public bath and was surprised to find it filled with locals who used it as a communal meeting place—they are attracted not by the ancient architecture, but by the “free and plentiful supply of hot water” that is collected in two large baths.
According to some of the bathers Lewis met during his visit, the bath was built by the Romans “before Jesus” and was repaired by the Ottomans after an earthquake damaged it centuries later—whether this timeline is accurate or not, such accounts do bring a lot of color into the history of this fascinating site.
Amazingly, other than some minor modern add-ons—such as the new changing room doors—the bath remains largely as it did two millennia ago.
Read more about this ancient Roman bath over here.
Photo by Ghezal Tarek
Photo by Ghezal Tarek
[via BBC News, images via Neatorama]