Researchers find the largest Roman bathhouse in the Netherlands in Nijmegen: ‘Proof that the city was vibrant well into the third century’

The excavation of the bathhouse is high in the top three of Erik Verhelst’s most beautiful excavations. “And I have been in the profession for decades,” emphasizes the 55-year-old archaeologist. It stands among the remains of Ulpia Noviomagus, founded around 100 AD. The Roman city was located a few hundred meters further west than the current Nijmegen city center.

Verhelst wears an orange construction vest with the image of Emperor Postumus (260-269 AD). Below the emperor’s head is the text ‘Ulpia plus ultra‘ (Ulpia [wordt] further and further [opgegraven]). The excavation, which started last September, has found many coins bearing his image – evidence that the city was vibrant well into the third century AD.

Verhelst knows the Roman side of Nijmegen well. In 1993, as a third-year student, he helped excavate a double temple, dedicated to Mercury and Fortune, on Maasplein. Now he supervises students himself as a project leader. Next week three Groningen archeology students will join us. Interns come and go, he says.

On the construction site – where a large apartment complex is to be built with a view of the Waal – archaeologists and construction workers work ten meters apart. Two data processors are constantly active in a construction site. Finds are measured with GPS and documented with photogrammetry. In the 1990s, everything was still done in pencil, says Verhelst. “That went quite quickly too.”

The archaeologist thinks that the sidewalks and squares of Ulpia were regularly swept. The remains that ended up in ditches and pits are now being sieved out. The archaeologists have now collected approximately 75 construction bags with remains. For example, it contains shards of a spell cup, which usually bears Latin texts such as ‘Drink empty’ or ‘Health’, Verhelst explains.

Fake archaeological sites

Next to the excavation site, where parts of the Roman city wall, street and hypocaust floor (a Roman raised floor on stone pillars under which hot air circulated) are visible, a Polish temporary worker is cleaning construction ceramics: tiles, roof tiles, parts of the wall. Not all remains end up in a depot or museum. Roman remains are also destroyed. Sad, but you can’t keep everything, says Verhelst. The creation of false archaeological sites must be prevented at all times. “If someone takes a bucket with leftover remains and deposits it in the garden, they can later say: hey, there was a Roman villa here. That is the danger.”

The bronze bust of wine god Bacchus, signet rings and hair needles with a gold tip appeal to the imagination. But Verhelst also looks at the ceramics with great interest. Some remains bear stamps with the names of settled legions, probably from the military tile factory a few kilometers away. All those stamps are easy to date. It is the purest way to determine the construction date of a building.

It is difficult to say exactly how big Ulpia was. The city was larger on the Waal side, but the river eroded part of the city. It is not possible to determine exactly how much disappeared into the river. Another problem: Ulpia was used as a stone quarry in the Middle Ages. And also in the seventeenth century they removed “really a lot” for reuse.

Project developer pays for research

Archaeological research has been conducted on Ulpia since 1840. Industry has been built on the old Roman city since the nineteenth century. It was located outside the dike, so it was raised several meters. “That is why we now have to dig very deep,” Verhelst explains. “That is not because the Roman period is very deep in the ground.”

The bathhouse was discovered by chance in 1992, during the last expansion of the now closed Honig soup factory. At the time, archaeologists were allowed to observe for three weeks and had to pay for the research themselves. At the time, there were no official arrangements for archeology, researchers had to rely on the goodwill of the land developer. “Nowadays the municipality says to a project developer: build on a Roman city? First pay for the archaeological excavation.”

Zoom in

The developer of a large apartment complex has given archaeologists more time to dig. “We started with a test trench that, contrary to expectations, was extremely full of important remains. Then we said: we are not going to make it in a few months.”

The buildings were luxurious, according to Verhelst. Columns, decorated friezes, limestone slabs, painted interior walls, colorful panel decorations. In the courtyard, archaeologists found fragments of bronze statues. And sometimes stretches of wall of up to 40 centimeters.

“Don’t imagine too much, it’s not Pompeii,” says Verhelst as he removes the lid from a plastic container. He shows a piece of wall with red and yellow stripes. “Very occasionally we come across walls with the image of plant vines. Sometimes pieces of marble imitation, but no figures or animals. It is usually a bit more sober in this region.”

Better research techniques

Research must reveal how much larger the bathhouse is than the previously found remains of public bathhouses in the cities of Forum Hadriani (2,200 square meters, Voorburg) and Coriovallum (2,500 square meters, Heerlen). It is not yet clear whether the east side of the building was added later or was a standalone bathhouse.

There is still a lot of Roman history hidden in Nijmegen. For example on the east side, where there were army camps. Only when land is ‘disturbed’ by construction projects and Roman remains in that ground are ‘threatened’, does the municipality call in archaeologists.

Stephan Mols, professor of archeology at Radboud University, is not impatient. “You can also say: leave Roman remains in the ground for as long as possible, because research techniques are getting better,” he says on the phone. “In thirty years’ time, excavation will probably be done in a completely different way and we will collect more information.” Besides, he says, the city is still alive. “History is still being made now.”

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