Reimagining Roman Bath: Past, Present, and Future

My thesis seeks to critically engage with the history of the Roman Baths and will address a range of topics and issues pertaining to Bath and its hinterland in the ancient past, Georgian revival, Victorian excavation, and modern incarnation. Building on the momentum of recent decolonial studies, my thesis will question not only our received knowledge but also how it has been presented to the public through the museum.

Moreover, it will approach the remains at Roman Bath from a bottom-up perspective, attempting to find marginalised voices within the surviving material and emphasising the dynamism and connectivity of life in the ancient world (Millett 2016, Horden & Purcell 2000). My project encompasses a range of research questions reflecting both the overarching themes of the CDA and my own personal research interests.

1. What was the wider intellectual context in which the baths were discovered? How did this influence the individuals tasked with uncovering and building over the remains?

Are there other comparable sites in Britain? From this, we must understand the extent to which the discoveries at Bath affected Victorian interpretations of life in Roman Britain or, indeed, how interpretations of the remains at Bath were affected by wider theories about Roman Britain. Which one affected the other more, and why? How did this change over time?

2. The epigraphy found at the site, both inside the sanctuary and in the wider area, will prove vital to locating non-elite individuals who have, so far, remained thoroughly under-studied. We must ask what kind of people typically left inscriptions and why?

Where did people place their monuments? How affected by Roman power structures and inter-personal relationships were these individuals? How integrated was the settlement at Bath with civilian and military networks?

Where did visitors, patrons, and residents come from and what materials did they use? Who are making votive deposits and for what purpose?

3. Leading on from the epigraphy, there is a clear need to understand how Aquae Sulis fit into its wider Southwestern context - to follow these non-elites as they moved between the settlement and its hinterland. As Millett has made clear, understanding the importance of sites like Aquae Sulis "requires the peopling of the whole landscape rather than just looking at particular structures" (Millett 2016, 711).

We must ask, then, how did the nearby Fosse Way influence the diffusion of objects and people? Did proximity to Bath influence rural settlement patterns and did they change over time (Taylor 2007)? From how far afield did building materials have to travel?

4. The final research questions concern feeding this original research and other academic conclusions regarding Bath back into a museum context. What preconceptions do the public bring with them into the museum (Hingley 2019)? How do we make academic ideas about Roman Britain and Bath accessible? How do we ensure we don't fall into the trap of using the Roman remains as a mirror for the modern world without critical engagement such as at Hadrian's Wall (Witcher 2014)?