Sanctuary and Roman Baths of Mura

The Sanctuary and Roman Baths of Mura is a site of 3600 m² that began to be excavated in the 1970s although archaeological work still continues to recover it. It was built in the first century, promoted by Marco Cornelio Nigrino, and is one of the most monumental religious and healing complexes in Hispania. The Greek-style temple is surrounded by a closed enclosure with a slightly trapezoidal floor plan and includes an aedicula. The thermal complex is part of the Pompeian style and consists of two large buildings, the largest for males, and the smallest for females, separated from each other and articulated around a palace, although access was through a thermarum basilica, since only men had access to the palace. The two baths are composed of apodyterium (changing room), frigidarium (cold room), tepidarium (warm room) and caldarium (hot room) and have their own praefurnium (oven). The male side had a cold pool in one corner of the arena and the female side had an indoor pool. During the Byzantine and Visigothic period, the sanctuary and the baths were converted into a Christian monastery, which was definitively abandoned towards the end of the 7th century; from the Byzantine period, a lamp representing a Coptic cross with a clear eastern influence was recovered, while burials proliferated inside and outside the building during the Visigothic period, in one of which the belt loop was discovered, which provided the latest date of occupation of the ancient municipality.  The complex, which preserves a large part of the original flooring and the hot air ducts in very good condition, is one of the main Roman sites in the Valencian Community.