Aquae Sulphurae, Ilidža, Sarajevo - National Monument of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Location
Ilidža Municipality is one of the nine municipalities of Sarajevo Canton. It covers the south-western part of the city, and is some 12 km. from the city centre. The south-western boundary consists of the foothills of Mt Igman, that to the east and north is formed by the Željeznica river, and the river Bosna constitutes the western boundary. The major road leading southwards along the Neretva valley and northwards along the Bosna valley runs through Ilidža.
The remains of Roman buildings are on the left bank of the Željeznica, by the thermal springs in Lužana.
Historical information
A variety of factors, particularly the natural conditions, have led to continuity of habitation of the Sarajevo plain. On their arrival in the region the Romans found it inhabited by the Desitiati, a large and powerful tribe, with a relatively advanced culture based on metalworking. The earliest, primitive settlements of the indigenous population were of the hillfort type (castella), located on hilltops. Their favourable geographical location enabled them to develop and gradually to evolve into oppida (sing. oppidum), the main centres of territory-based communities. Several oppida grew up in the immediate environs of Ilidža: Gradac (Ilinjača) in Gornji Kotorac, Gradina in Zenika, Debelo brdo on the slopes of Mt Trebević, Naklo in Vojkovići, and Gradac in the Hadžić area (E. Pašalić, 1959, 116).
The rate of settlement in Ilidža intensified during the Roman period thanks to the major road leading from Narona along the river Neretva valley past Boračko lake, Konjic and Ivan-sedlo to the Sarajevo plain and on towards the Drina. The presence of sulphur springs was of considerable significance for the gradual evolution of the original village-type Roman settlement (vicus) into an urban entity with specific spa facilities in the 1st century CE. This is suggested by the Roman inscription Aquae S… (S… Baths), found in 1936.
It may be deduced from information acquired by an analysis of Roman inscriptions that Ilidža had its own autonomous urban administration, and that it was a colony, not a settlement that evolved spontaneously and organically over a long period. It probably owed its existence to deliberate planning by the Roman authorities, in the person of Marcus Aurelius (161-180), who settled Roman veterans who had served out their period of military service in the Sarajevo plain in the second half of the 2nd century CE. The settlement acquired the full legal status of a colony of Roman citizens by means of a formal act of founding a colony (M.H.Ćeman, 2000. 134). By the decree Constitutio Antoniniana, in 212, all the indigenous tribal communities and the colonial entities belonging to them became municipal territorial-political communities.
The settlement clearly defined by this decree argues in favour of colony status. Aquae S… became an important and stable element in the Roman presence.
The ager (occupied land granted to time-served veterans) of the Aquae S… colony probably covered the wider region of the Sarajevo plain, extending to the north along the Bosna and Željeznica valleys to Breza and Podlugovi, north-west to Kiseljak, Podastinje, Gromiljak, Višnjic and Busovača, and south to Pazarić and Tarčin. The colony of Aquae S… became the administrative centre of the area, and with the passage of time it acquired a distinct reputation as a healing spa and trade centre.
Archaeological excavations have shown that the settlement beside the thermal springs had already taken shape by the end of the 1st century. It underwent considerable development in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th centuries, and remained in existence until the 6th century. The thermal complex, the centre of the settlement, was built in the 2nd and 3rd centuries.
The precise extent and size of this antique-era settlement has not yet been determined, and nor has the final appearance of the buildings erected there. In the early mediaeval period these buildings were used for continued settlement and burial, as evidenced by finds of pottery and jewellery dating from the 9th to 12th centuries. Seventeen chest-shaped stećak tombstones, now displaced, have surived from the late mediaeval period.
Description of the property
The buildings dating from the Roman period in Ilidža consist of:
- a complex of villas around the Hotel Bosna (with building 1)
- a villa urbana (building A)
- an unexcavated building, used for as yet unidentified purposes (building B)
- a hospitalium and hospitium (building C)
The complex of villas around the Hotel Bosna consists of five villages. The foundations of a large building were found beneath the hotel. The best-preserved mosaic was found beneath the north-eastern entrance to the hotel. The central area of the mosaic shows the head of a woman representing the nymph of the thermal springs, with her symbols, fish and seahorses, in an elliptical medallion. The motifs, rich colour palette and accurate workmanship date the mosaic to the 1st century, when the Roman art of mosaic was at its peak.
Systematic excavations conducted on the vacant area to the north and east of the Hotel Bosnia have demonstrated that this building was part of a larger residential complex. Another building, measuring 19.22 x 12.33, of rectangular ground plan, was also excavated. The remains of mosaics with geometric designs, a rich colour palette and a high standard of workmanship (late 1st/early 2nd century) were found in two rooms.
The villa urbana (building A) has been excavated in its entirety. The building measures 33.9 x 36.85 m. It stands 75 m to the west of building 1. In layout it corresponds to the type of urban villa designed basically for residential occupancy. It is roughly square in plan, with thirty rooms of various sizes and uses grouped around the central area with a peristyle. The building lies north-south, with a slight deviation to the north-east. The variations in basic proportions in the ratio between the central area and the surrounding rooms arose from frequent rebuilding and alterations to meet new needs. The central area of the building, around the peristyle, is the oldest part of the building, dating from the 1st century CE. The east side, with a portico that was built on in the 2nd or 3rd century, faced a side road or local market square.
The building is of stone from the Ilidža area. Both limestone and sandstone were used in its construction. Because the ground is so damp, the foundations of the building were dug to a depth of 1 m, or even deeper in parts. Quarry stone, porous mortar and river aggregate (pebbles, gravel) were used for the foundations. The core of the walls is a solid rammed mass of quarry stone set in mortar. The walls were faced in a variety of ways: with slab-like quarry stone, irregularly shaped quarry stone (opus incertum), regular-cut stone blocks (opus quadratum), and a combination of these. The excavations uncovered no remains of windows, so that it is possible only to hypothesize, from the shards of glass found in the central area, how they were arranged. The roof was tile-clad (tegulae, imbrices). The building had no basement or hypocaust structure – it was heated in some other way.
Two types of floor were discovered in the building. Most of the rooms had a floor consisting of river aggregate, pieces of brick and mortar as a base layer, overlaid with screed. Mosaic-decorated floors were discovered in three rooms (21, 22 and 13). All the mosaics were carefully executed and characterized by a rich colour palette and decorative designs. The base for the mosaics consisted of three layers: a layer of nuclus (fine red mortar), a layer of rudus (grey mortar with gravel) and a layer of statumen.
Room 21, measuring 10 x 8 m, was probably a triclinium(2) or tablinum (3).It had the finest, and relatively the best-preserved mosaic floor. The surround consists of heart-shaped designs springing one out of another. The central emblem is decorated with rhombs (five large and four small) and medallions, with all the designs joined by interlacing. The large rhombs have rounded corners and are arranged one at the centre and one at each corner. No figures are visible in two of them, as a result of damage. Two are decorated with the figures of sealions, and one has a seahorse (hippocampus) being ridden by Amori. The small rhombs are set between the larger ones and are decorated with mascherone(4). There is a total of 16 medallions with figures symbolizing the sea (fish, jellyfish, galleys, starfish) and birds, as the symbol of the garden and the life eternal. In the eastern part of the mosaic, within a rectangular field, are two antelopes as supporters to a tree of life. Their front legs are rampant and their rear-ends terminate in serpent-like form. The frame to this image consists of a series of small fields with a heart-shaped fret joined by a Greek key meander.
The mosaic in room no. 13 was discovered in 1955 and immediately photographed and conserved. The total area of this mosaic is 39 sq.m. It is damaged at the edges and in the central section, where the remains of figures, probably personifications of the seasons of the year, can be made out. The composition consists of a triple surround and a central field. The two outer bands of the border are plain, while the third is much wider and filled on three sides by rows of quadrifoil decorated rosettes. In the centre of the third band, on the south side of the mosac, the rosettes are replaced by a double meander in which two designs alternate horizontally and vertically in unbroken succession: framed squares with oculi and labyrinth-swastikas. This part of the design was to add emphasis to the entrance to the room. The central section of the mosaic is framed in a double fret. It is divided into a number of fields, and decorated in a variety of ways. Four octagonal medallions with no figural or geometric designs touch the central emblem, in the form of a square. The rest of the central section is filled with rhombs, trapezia and incomplete squares with figures of various fish. The rhombs and trapezia are filled with diagonally-stylized triangles of white square and alternate along the edge. They are framed in double fret.
A small piece of the mosaic in room 22, which measured 5 x 5.3m, has survived. This shows geometric designs, a square field framed in a double Greek key meander. There are two linked rhombs in part of the central field, reminiscent of an open book, as well as a triangular field.
The walls of this building were decorated with frescoes. During excavations, decorations were found on fragments of mortar, consisting of straight and wavy lines in various colours (red, green, ochre, grey). Traces of stylobites on the outer edges and the circular contours of the interior wall of the portico are evidence of what were once rich and varied stone mouldings.
A building the use of which has not been identified (building B) was found between buildings A and C. It stands 30 m from building A. Archaeological excavations have been conducted on this building on a number of occasions, but have never been completed. It is thus not possible to identify with certainty the layout or the purpose of the building, but it can safely be said to be associated with building C. The walls run in the same direction as those of buildings A and C.
The hospitium or hospitalium (building C) stands to the north-east of building A. The building is characterized by an interesting architectural treatment and diversity of architectural detail. It is a public building. The ground plan is an elongated rectangle (area 2880 sq.m.) with a number of rooms around an inner courtyard. Archaeological excavations have demonstrated that the primary use of the building was thermal, with a healing spa (pars balnearia) and recreation centre. Later, rooms for guests were added (hospitium). It was fitted with various items of equipment, state-of-the-art for their day, and with piped water and drainage. Heating was by means of a hypocaust system. Pieces of lead waterpipes and the remains of the drainage and hypocaust system were discovered. The outer walls were 70, 72 and 76 cm thick, and the interior walls were 56 and 60 cm thick. The walls and foundations were built using a combined technique of slab-like and rough-cut stone. The interior of the walls is a compact mass of quarry stone and mortar. Roof tiles (tegulae, imbrices) were used to clad the roof. The floors in the rooms were of four different types: covered with terracotta tiles, hexagonal cuneiform cubes, or screed, while mosaic floors were discovered in seven rooms. In three of these the mosaic floors were relatively well preserved, but in the other four only fragments of mosaic were discovered.
The base for the mosaics was lime with an admixture of ground brick. The mosaic cubes were set in a coat of fine mortar laid over the base layer. The prevailing colours are white and grey. The ornamental designs consist of geometric bands, rectangles, squares and two figures of dolphins. The markedly stylized composition, austerity of design, technique and size of the tesserae suggest that these mosaics date from the 3rd and 4th century CE, when social crises were increasingly having an impact even on the art of mosaic.
Minor remains of frescoes have also survived. The complex layout of the building is evidence that it was built to high standards and was open for use by spa patients and other guests from the 2nd to the 4th century.
Archaeological material
Stone mouldings:
In building A: pedestal and base of a column with plinth found in situ in the peristyle
In building C: part of an architrave slab, three bases and several fragments of capitals, and two fragments of fluted columns.
Pottery:
In building A: the most significant find was the neck of an amphora with handles and the impressed stamp of a workshop: COSSII. The vessel is pale yellow in colour and without ornamentation. Various specimens of provincial terra sigillata were found, without ornamental, along with shards of terra nigra; the largest quantity of shards were of coarse local pottery of poor workmanship. Several pieces of Roman terracotta lamps were unearthed, along with two conical wedges, used to hold amphora upright in the ground.
In building C a small, thin-walled vessel with no ornamentation was found.
Coins:
In building A, 25 specimens of Roman coins were found, the oldest dating from 42 CE and the most recent from 364-375 CE.
In building B, three coins were found, one dating from 98-118 CE and two from 364-378 CE.
In building C, 15 coins were found, the oldest dating from 253-268 CE and the most recent from 276-282 CE.
Other archaeological material:
a bronze belt buckle, shards of glass vessels, a bone needle, various items of jewellery (mainly fibulas), cosmetic wares, an arrow-head and nails from various structural components.
Material with epigraphics was found in a secondary position in Ilidža and various parts of the Sarajevo plain, where it was used as building material. An altar was found by the sulphur springs, with a dedication to Apollo Tadenus by Harmidis, a slave of the Colony. It is from this that the ranking of this settlement was discovered.
The size and quantity of items, along with the appearance and quality of the mosaic and certain finds, indicates the degree of luxury with which these baths were equipped, and their historical, artistic and aesthetic value places the baths among the supreme achievements of Roman architecture in the province of Roman Dalmatia, to which this settlement belonged.
Legal status to date
Pursuant to the provisions of the law, and by Ruling of the Urban Institute for the Protection and Care of Cultural Monuments in Sarajevo no. 288/67 dated 1 March 1967, the archaeological site of the Roman settlement in Ilidža was placed under state protection. It was entered in the court register of protected monuments under Dn. No. 1677/67.
The archaeological site is on the Provisional List of National Monuments under the name Ilidža – Roman foundations, under serial no. 566.
The Regional Plan for BiH to 2000 lists it as a Category II monument.
Research and conservation and restoration works
In 1893, when the Hotel Bosnia was being built, the remains of five Roman villas were discovered. Excavations were conducted under the supervision of J. Kellner. The mosaic found by the entrance to the hotel was taken to the National Museum for safe keeping.
In 1949 and 1950 excavations were conducted by an amateur archaeologist, Dr. Niko Andrijašević, who partly uncovered the villa urbana (building A) and discovered a mosaic in one of the rooms.
In 1951, works continued on the villa urbana under the management of Dr. Abramić, for whom Prof. Sergejevski stood in for a while.
In 1953 conservation works were carried out on part of the walls of the villa.
From 1955 to 1963 several campaigns of systematic excavation of antique-era remains were carried out under the management of Dr. Pašalić.
In 1979 test digs were carried out when the parking area by the hotels Bosna and Jadran was being laid out, and subsequently when trenches were being dug for the storm drain along the left-hand side of the asphalt road leading to the cadastral building of Ilidža Municipality. The remains of two or more buildings were discovered. Using sensors, the presence of other buildings was also ascertained, linked by a walkway with a colonnade and ramparts.
In 1988 and 1989 conservation and restoration works were carried out on the walls and mosaics of villa A. In 1989 the walls of the hospitium were fully uncovered and conservation and restoration works were carried out on the building.
In 1990 excavations were conducted on the building between the village and the hospitium (building B). These works were cut short by the outbreak of war in 1992.
That same year the Cantonal Institute for the Protection of the Cultural, Historical and Natural Heritage of Sarajevo conducted works to clear the buildings of wild scrub and set up a notice board.
The movable archaeological material is deposited in the premises of the National Museum in Sarajevo.
Current condition of the property
An on-site visit in July 2004 ascertained as follows:
The foundation walls and floor mosaics of the villa urbana and hospitium and part of building B have survived. The archaeological site can be seen only in part:
The villa building is completley overgrown with high, impenetrable vegetation, and it is impossible to determine with certainty its current condition.
The incompletely excavated building B has been wrecked by the laying of a gravel road to the north, and has been buried under soil to the south.
The walls of the hospitium have been conserved and are in good condition. Part of this building, too, is overgrown with shrubs, which need to be cleared.
(Source: Excerpt from Bosnia and Herzegovina Commissiona for Preservation of National Monuments - Aquae Sulphurae, Ilidža, Sarajevo - National Monument of Bosnia and Herzegovina