"The fittings of the interior - apartments, colonnades and baths - were of manifold variety and sumptuous ..."

Josephus Flavius

Beyond the human need for cleanliness, the bathhouse also had a social function. Bathing and the associated physical activities were an important element in Roman social and cultural life, to which Herod aspired. This was where the king and his guests met, bathed and exercised. The sophisticated bathing arrangements, which are reminiscent of a dry sauna in our days, the vivid wall paintings and the colorful stone floors demonstrate the opulence, the high standard of living and the importance that Herod assigned to the bathhouses in his palaces. Bathing took place in the rooms inside the building, and the bathers exercised in the courtyard, which was surrounded by a roofed colonnade.

In the period of the revolt, the bathhouse was adapted to the rulings relating to bathing and purity in Jewish law. We find evidence of this in the two ritual bath (mikvehs) and the bench built from drums of the dismantled columns of the courtyard.

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