DESCRIPTION:

The bath complex of the "Villa of Theseus" is the largest ever found in a private residence in Cyprus and is estimated to have been able to accommodate up to 30 people at the same time. Due to its size and location, with an entrance from the road to the east, it seems that, in addition to private use, it may have also had a public function at one point. Upon entering the complex from the east, the bathers would first enter the changing room, where they would undress before proceeding to the cold room (frigidarium), a large, elongated hall at the centre of the complex, decorated with a geometric mosaic floor and equipped with a small basin for foot baths and two larger basins for cold bathing. The bather would then continue to the three heated rooms on the southern side of the complex: the warm bath (tepidarium), the steam bath (sudatorium), and the hot bath (caldarium). These rooms were heated using the hypocaust system. This involved a raised floor supported by small brick columns, beneath which hot gasses, released from a furnace to the east, would flow. The heat was then transferred to the walls via especially hollow tubes (tubuli).