A Sound Map of the Roman Baths

Introduction

Discover the sounds, sights, and stories of the Roman Baths in a new way with A Sound Map of the Roman Baths.

A Sound Map of the Roman Baths is a creative project by Archaeology of the Ear inspired by the Roman Baths’ extraordinary history and geothermal hot springs. Composer and musician Chris Cundy and poet Adam Horovitz have got together with filmmaker Dominyka Vinčaitė to create a series of short experimental films, poems, and soundscapes to explore the historic site in a new way.

Archaeology of the Ear and A Sound Map of the Roman Baths is a partnership with the Roman Baths, Resonance FM, University of Gloucestershire and the Sound/Image Research Centre at University of Greenwich. Supported by Help Musicians and Arts Council England.

Image: A row of logos including Help Musicians, Arts Council England, Resonance FM, University of Gloucestershire, Sound Image and Bath & North East Somerset Council

The Sacred Spring at Dawn

The Sound Map begins with a visit to the Sacred Spring at dawn. Chris explains:

"Adam’s poem draws from a time earlier in the year when we first set foot here surrounded by high walls and navigating a set of ghostly steps that slope down to the water's edge. Usually closed off to the public, the Sacred Spring or King’s Bath as it is also known, can be glimpsed as you move around the complex of the Roman Baths, looking down at it from the Victorian balcony of the Pump Room on one side or through the arch portals of the Roman Baths on the other.

This is the very heart of the site providing a channel to the Great Bath itself, and forming a whole network of surrounding underground streams, culverts and pools that spill out into different areas, from under us and beyond."

The Waters of Sulis/Minerva

Our Sound Map continues its journey into the subterranean world of The Roman Baths and brings us face to face with the goddess Sulis Minerva herself, as Chris Cundy explains:

“Adam’s poem takes inspiration from Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116 riffing on parallel themes of timelessness and earthbound love. It contemplates a marriage of two goddess figures, firstly an Iron Age deity who presided over the sacred spring in much earlier times known as Sulis, and secondly the equivalent Roman goddess dedicated to health and wellbeing known as Minerva. The disembodied bronze head of this conflated being looks out at us once again from an eerie position within the museum. We find her in an area that was once part of an open air precinct just to one side of the Baths and situated more or less in front of where a Temple once stood.

An unassuming set of steps appear from behind the museum’s furthest most wall marking the only part of the Temple’s main building that can still be seen in its original place. Today these steps lead nowhere, leaving just a fragment of time and place somewhere under the city. In 1727 the bronze head of Sulis Minerva was discovered by work people as they dug a sewer trench going through Stall Street in Bath’s city centre. They found themselves hacking into part of what would later be revealed as a Roman building lying some sixteen feet below them. The gilded bronze head would have once been attached to a full statue positioned at the very centre of the Temple’s interior. Wearing full head gear, and quite possibly adorned by fire and steam, the goddess would have made a powerful impression on our senses, commanding a holistic presence in human form of the spirit from the spring.”

Water, Prayer

Our Sound Map leads us further into the hallowed spaces of the Roman Baths and we find ourselves in a quiet corner around a drinking fountain. We contemplate the water’s eternal cycle, the geothermal flow and change drawn from fault lines below.

Chris Cundy explains: "Adam’s poem combines the overwhelming thought of this subterranean earth journey through deep blue marl and Jurassic rock with the quiet act of a human ritual. A simple cup of water is lifted from an unfathomable place. It’s a moment where we can stop and contemplate our own journey around the baths, but as we do so we feel the gravity of these ancient walls spinning all around us."

"The sounds and music in the short film originate from hydrophone recordings that were made under the surface of the spring and from a number of other locations that were recorded around the site early in 2023. The natural subterranean sounds of the Roman Baths have been compressed and over layered in different ways. Sometimes they are forged into simple electronic processes which start to form discrete rhythms all of their own. "Dominyka has filmed the hypnotic gas bubbles as they dance to the surface of the Kings Bath. They were captured using a set of submersible cameras. We also see diffused reflections of light as they reach the darkest surfaces below the ancient waterfall."

Infinity on an Agar Plate

Our Sound Map has taken us on many twists and turns. We have retraced the lead-lined routeways built by the Romans, followed their culvert streams and overflows, and we’ve been led into a subterranean world full of rushing noise and babble.

One thing that has really struck us has been the vibrancy and colouration of mineral oxidations clinging to the sides of gullies and waterfalls. The closer you look the more detail you see. We have seen the steam swelling and rising off the surface of the Great Bath in the morning light and just below the surface, clusters of algae gather. We’ve been listening to this place with rubber-coated hydrophones and exploring its underwater world with submersible cameras.

We were lucky enough to encounter a research sampling expedition here one morning. Students from the School of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Plymouth led by Dr. Lee Hutt were gathering samples, looking for potentially life-giving organisms that might help our understanding of antibiotic resistance in modern medicine.

Our film shows close-up images of a tiny nematode worm from the Roman Baths filmed under the microscope. This mind-boggling little invertebrate is part of an important ecosystem. Its home is the unique biodiversity of the geothermal hot spring, a place that has promised good health and well-being for eternity.

About the Artists

Chris Cundy is a composer and performer based in the South West specialising in bass clarinet. Exploring popular and experimental music he has toured internationally as a solo artist, as well as with acts including Timber Timbre, and Somali-Canadian songwriter Ladan Hussein (aka Cold Specks). Recently he featured as solo bass clarinettist alongside the voice of Gillian Anderson for the Original motion picture soundtrack Robin Robin (Aardman Animations for Netflix, 2021).

Adam Horovitz is a poet and performer based in Stroud, Gloucestershire. He has published three collections of poetry: Turning (Headland, 2011), The Soil Never Sleeps (Palewell, 2018) and Love and Other Fairy Tales (Indigo Dreams, 2021), as well as a CD of poetry and music, Little Metropolis (2015) and a memoir, A Thousand Laurie Lees (History Press, 2014). He appeared on Cerys Matthews’ and Hidden Orchestra’s album We Come From the Sun (Decca, 2021).

Explore Bath's world heritage

Other things to do in Bath

A Sound Map of the Roman Baths

Explore Bath's world heritage

Explore Bath's world heritage

Other things to do in Bath

A Sound Map of the Roman Baths

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