. . . m o r f r e t t Le n i a j i a b r e z A Archaeological Explorations at Agsu The Agsu Archaeological Expedition conducted by the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the National Academy of Sciences in Azerbaijan has been exploring the medieval town of Agsu since March, 2010, with the support of the MIRAS Social Organization in Support of Studying of Cultural Heritage.
‘cloak-room’. Various-size mud-bricks were used in the construction of the heating channels and flues.
The Expedition has now completed the archaeological research of the bath-house unearthed on the 4th excavation zone which had remained imcomplete in 2010 and also during the field and research season of 2011. As a result of the continuing excavations, the bath’s main entrance, stairs, stone floor, and other subsidiary structures within the complex, including a large open square with a stone floor flanked by rooms and a large swimming-pool, were revealed and explored. As the overall plan of the bath-house emerged, it became clear that the swimming pool formed the central element of the complex, and that it was flanked by a ‘recreational room’ with ‘tomblike’ recesses along its sides, a ‘cloakroom’ and several separate bathing rooms.
Lighting of the bath-house was achieved via windows with carved stone cupolst. During excavation one large and one smaller stone cupol was revealed inside the bath-house.
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The roof of the bath-house appears to have had a steep incline. Judging from the building fragments it seems that sections of the roof were arched and constructed from mud-brick. Other sections of roof The Expedition, which is led by Doctor of Historical covering the bath-house, especially the floors of the Sciences, Gafar Jabiyev, has painstackingly examined ‘tomb-like recesses’ in the recreation room, were some 15,000 square metres of the archaeological site arched and lined with mud-bricks. The roof of the till now and has revealed numerous unique artefacts passage leading from the cloak-room to the recrethat shed light on the medieval and recent history of ation room was almost certainly vaulted and lined Azerbaijan. with mud-bricks.
The bath-house was found to have a heating system fitted under the floor, the walls of which were lined with quarried stone and mud-bricks, neatly fitted to allow the free circulation of smoke and heat. A hearth located east of the bath-house formed the heart of the heating system. Above the hearth was an arch with two flues and which served to buttress the western wall beneath the bathing rooms and the 148
The remnants of several water and sewerage channels, running to and from the bath-house, were also revealed and investigated. One of the more capacious channels, cut along a north-south direction, ran from the bath-house’s cloak-room to a ditch located along the northern fortress walls of the city. The bottom and sides of this channel are built with precisely fiited hewn river stones, while the upper section was covered with rafters. This channel was cut along a steeper inclination so as to drain into the channel to the north of the bath-house. The Expedition’s 2011 field season launched a broader investigation of the area we provisionally call the 5th excavation zone, located closer to the city centre. The initial test area, located in the city centre and running along a north-south axis, measured some 100 metres in length by 2 metres in width. Our goal was to reveal any buildings located in this wider area