Ancient Roman architecture adopted the external language of classical Greek architecture for the purposes of the ancient Romans, but was different from Greek buildings, becoming a new architectural style. The two styles are often considered one body of classical architecture. Roman architecture flourished in the Roman Republic and to even a greater extent under the Empire, when the great majority of surviving buildings were constructed. It used new materials, particularly Roman concrete, and newer technologies such as the arch and the dome to make buildings that were typically strong and well-engineered. Large numbers remain in some form across the former empire, sometimes complete and still in use today.
A hypocaust is a system of central heating in a building that produces and circulates hot air below the floor of a room, and may also warm the walls with a series of pipes through which the hot air passes. This air can warm the upper floors as well. The word derives from the Ancient Greek hypo meaning "under" and caust-, meaning "burnt". The earliest reference to such a system suggests that the temple of Ephesus in 350 BC was heated in this manner, although Vitruvius attributes its invention to Sergius Orata in c. 80 BC. Its invention improved the hygiene and living conditions of citizens, and was a forerunner of modern central heating.
In ancient Rome, thermae and balneae were facilities for bathing. Thermae usually refers to the large imperial bath complexes, while balneae were smaller-scale facilities, public or private, that existed in great numbers throughout Rome.
Letocetum is the ancient remains of a Roman settlement. It was an important military staging post and posting station near the junction of Watling Street, the Roman military road to north Wales, and Icknield Street. The site is now within the parish of Wall, Staffordshire, England. It is owned and run by the National Trust, under the name Letocetum Roman Baths Site & Museum. The site is in the guardianship of English Heritage as Wall Roman Site.
The kang is a traditional heated platform, 2 metres or more long, used for general living, working, entertaining and sleeping in the northern part of China, where the winter climate is cold. It is made of bricks or other forms of fired clay and more recently of concrete in some locations. The word kang means "to dry".
Crofton Roman Villa in Crofton, Orpington, in the London Borough of Bromley, is a Roman villa which was inhabited between approximately 140 and 400 AD. It was the centre of a farming estate of about 500 acres (200 ha), with farm buildings nearby, surrounded by fields, meadows and woods. The house was altered several times during its 260 years of occupation, and at its largest it probably had at least 20 rooms.
The tepidarium was the warm (tepidus) bathroom of the Roman baths heated by a hypocaust or underfloor heating system. The speciality of a tepidarium is the pleasant feeling of constant radiant heat, which directly affects the human body from the walls and floor.
A caldarium was a room with a hot plunge bath, used in a Roman bath complex.
Underfloor heating and cooling is a form of central heating and cooling that achieves indoor climate control for thermal comfort using hydronic or electrical heating elements embedded in a floor. Heating is achieved by conduction, radiation and convection. Use of underfloor heating dates back to the Neoglacial and Neolithic periods.
Gaius Sergius Orata was an Ancient Roman who was a successful merchant, inventor and hydraulic engineer. He is credited with inventing the cultivation of oysters and refinement to the hypocaust method of heating a building to provide, in addition, heated water for bathing.
Iulia Valentia Banasa was a Roman-Berber city in northern Morocco. It was one of the three colonias in Mauretania Tingitana founded by emperor Augustus between 33 and 25 BC for veterans of the battle of Actium, on top of a Mauretanian village. The site was in fact already occupied by the local Amazigh people from the 4th century BC, or perhaps earlier.
The Roman Baths of Ankara are the ruined remains of an ancient Roman bath complex in Ankara, Turkey, which were uncovered by excavations carried out in 1937–1944, and have subsequently been opened to the public as an open-air museum.
Ceramic building material, often abbreviated to CBM, is an umbrella term used in archaeology to cover all building materials made from baked clay. It is particularly, but not exclusively, used in relation to Roman building materials.
Billingsgate Roman House and Baths is an archaeological site in Londinium. The best preserved parts of the house are a bath with hypocausts. The ruins were discovered in 1848 while the Coal Exchange was built on the site. The remains were preserved and were visible in the cellar of the building. In 1967 to 1970, the Coal Exchange was replaced by another building and the Lower Thames Street was enlarged. Further excavations were made at the site and the remains were incorporated into the cellar of the new building, but were not open to the public.
The Roman Thermae are a complex of Ancient Roman baths (thermae) in the Black Sea port city of Varna in northeastern Bulgaria. The Roman Thermae are situated in the southeastern part of the modern city, which under the Roman Empire was known as Odessus. The baths were constructed in the late 2nd century AD and rank as the fourth-largest preserved Roman thermae in Europe and the largest in the Balkans.
Nabatean architecture refers to the building traditions of the Nabateans, an ancient Arab people who inhabited northern Arabia and the southern Levant. Their settlements—most prominently the assumed capital city of Raqmu —gave the name Nabatene to the Arabian borderland that stretched from the Euphrates to the Red Sea. Their architectural style is notable for its temples and tombs, most famously the ones found in Petra. The style appears to be a mix of Mesopotamian, Phoenician and Hellenistic influences modified to suit the Arab architectural taste. Petra, the capital of the kingdom of Nabatea, is as famous now as it was in the antiquity for its remarkable rock-cut tombs and temples. Most architectural Nabatean remains, dating from the 1st century BC to the 2nd century AD, are highly visible and well-preserved, with over 500 monuments in Petra, in modern-day Jordan, and 110 well preserved tombs set in the desert landscape of Hegra, now in modern-day Saudi Arabia. Much of the surviving architecture was carved out of rock cliffs, hence the columns do not actually support anything but are used for purely ornamental purposes. In addition to the most famous sites in Petra, there are also Nabatean complexes at Obodas (Avdat) and residential complexes at Mampsis (Kurnub) and a religious site of et-Tannur.
The Roman Berytus are located in the middle of downtown Beirut, Lebanon between Banks Street and Capuchin Street. The remains of a Roman bath of Berytus now surrounded by government buildings were found and conserved for posterity.
The Baths of Nero or Baths of Alexander were a complex of ancient Roman baths on the Campus Martius in Rome, built by Nero in either 62 or 64 and rebuilt by Alexander Severus in 227 or 229. It stood between the Pantheon and the Stadium of Domitian and were listed among the most notable buildings in the city by Roman authors and became a much-frequented venue. These thermae were the second large public baths built in Rome, after the Baths of Agrippa, and it was probably the first "imperial-type" complex of baths, with a monumental scale and symmetrical, axially-planned design. While in the sixteenth century the foundations of the caldarium were still visible, nothing else of the structure remains above ground except some fragments of walls incorporated into the structure of Palazzo Madama.
The Stabian Baths are an ancient Roman bathing complex in Pompeii, Italy, the oldest and the largest of the 5 public baths in the city. Their original construction dates back to ca. 125 BC, making them one of the oldest bathing complexes known from the ancient world. They were remodelled and enlarged many times up to the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD.
Villa Giulia is an ancient Roman imperial villa or palace on the north tip of the island of Ventotene which lies between the Campania and Lazio regions of Italy.
