Thermal resources and development - Global Atlas of the Region of Murcia

Thermal resources and development - Global Atlas of the Region of Murcia: "- Sent using Google Toolbar"
FIGURE 14. RECENT ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXCAVATIONS IN BATHROOMS OF FORTUNA allowing you to observe one of the monuments ROMANO, CARVED MAINLY IN THE ROCK AND ASSOCIATED Upwelling of the thermal waters that would arise from THEN THAT sinkhole. DETAILS OF THE HEAD OF A TRIPARTITE AND ANGLE OF THE THERMAL POOL (PHOTO, JESÚS GÓMEZ).

So, after only a few resorts reopened its doors, including the largest in the Region of Murcia: Archena and Fortuna.

Going back further in time, the evolution of spas in our region is similar to that of other Spanish and European regions. For some places for centuries forgotten and even feared for their hot water, steam and effusions of strange smells, had already begun to be appreciated from the Renaissance and confirmed Roman background (Figure 12). As is the case Archena (Lison and Lillo, 2003), belonging to the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, whose baths frequented mainly from the eighteenth century led to the construction projects of Ginés Martínez, 1751 and Gregory of la Rosa, 1785 (Figure 13). Where own accommodation handy militia became so numerous during the War of Independence, after the fame could extend throughout Spain. Water as effective for people to place weapons in 1850 the disposal of the Baths of Archena, it would under certain conditions, including the right of soldiers they can be used free of charge; seed of what the late nineteenth century became be military residence.

In Fortuna, as in Archena, the study of thermal exploitation has increased in recent years (Lillo and Lison, 2002; Seiquer Matilla et al., 2004), highlighting the recent archaeological excavations especially in the Roman levels (FIGURE 14). After the many vicissitudes of the Middle Ages and modern times, coming to the nineteenth century and in accordance with the interests of these waters were in place a "New Bath" ownership of the villa was finished in 1845. Located only two hundred yards down the hill known as "Old Baths" and paid the compensation he had to pay a "Water Company" for having left in the above Baños dry Viejos (since 1839 following the drilling of a well a short distance and lower elevation).

In the case of Alhama, Roman baths of vaults to be in the town itself were the only ones in the region that runs continuously, even with ups and downs during the Middle Ages ( FIGURE 15), which also have happened on a smaller scale in Baños de Mula, but in both cases the evolution later resort, by various factors among which we must not forget the modest allocation of water in the first and the low tempera-ture in the second, continue more closely linked, especially in the example Mula, a local endogenous development.