Ancient Gerasa: Studying central bathhouse’s use through the ages

Ancient Gerasa: Studying central bathhouse’s use through the ages

 

AMMAN — Built in the late 3rd or early 4th century AD, the Central Bathhouse in Gerasa (modern Jerash) was in use for another 300 years.

“We cannot say for sure who built it [we do not have any inscriptions that tell us], but it was most likely paid for by members of the local elite of Jerash,” noted senior lecturer from the University of Edinburgh, Louise Blanke, in a recent e-mail interview with The Jordan Times.

Blanke is an archaeologist that was trained by the University of Copenhagen, where she completed her Bachelor and Master’s degrees, as well as her PhD. Later, Blanke held postdoctoral positions in Aarhus (Denmark), Oxford and Cambridge (UK) and in 2019, she joined the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.

Specialised in the late Antique and Islamic periods, she has worked for nearly 20 years in Jerash with the scholar Alan Walmsley on the “Danish-Jordanian Islamic Jerash Project” where she was responsible for the excavation of the Central Bath house and since 2015, she is working on a new project that examines a residential area and its development throughout Jerash’s history with a particular interest in the Umayyad and Abbasid periods. 

The Central Bathhouse was renovated and repaired multiple