Archaeology of Thermalism. Living and Working with Mineral Waters

This issue of Engramma approaches water – especially thermo-mineral water – not as a background element but as a material, sensory, and political infrastructure through which societies have organised bodies, beliefs, labour, and power. Across a wide chronological and geographical spectrum, the contributions show how thermalism, springs, rivers, and maritime environments generate forms of knowledge that are historically situated and never neutral. Maddalena Bassani re-reads Seneca’s Epistulae as a micro-archive of technical and architectural data on early imperial bathing, foregrounding the role of glass and proposing a methodological shift from moral discourse to archaeometric enquiry. Sofia Bulgarini and Andrea Luvaro analyse a protome of Achelous from Monte Raffe (Sicily), reinserting it into a landscape altered by illicit excavations and highlighting the territorial and political dimensions of water cults. Enrico Maria Giuffrè and Jacopo Tabolli reconstruct the long biography of the submerged Fishpond of Bagno del Saraceno (Isola del Giglio), from Roman maritime installation to subsequent phases of reuse, advancing the hypothesis of a nearby villa balneum. A broader Mediterranean perspective is offered by Ameur Younès, who maps hot springs and installations in Ancient Tunisia and argues for their centrality within local water management, challenging monument-centred historiographies. Mila Cvetkovic explores the Medicinal and Ritual Uses of Clays and “Earths” in classical sources, emphasising their connection with hydrothermal environments and the body as a site of exchange between natural resources, medicine, and ritual. Later chronologies are addressed by Edoardo Vanni, who examines the Medieval Thermal Site of Caldanelle di Petriolo as a hybrid space of architecture, technology, hospitality, and production, and by Paola Zanovello, who analyses the use of Thermal-Mineral waters in Hemp Processing in the Euganean Area under the Venetian Republic, collapsing the divide between wellness and labour. Contemporary perspectives include the work of Mauro Marzo and Anna Veronese on the transformation of Italian Thermal Sites, Paolo Faccio and Silvia Scordo on the Enhancement Project of Via Scavi in Montegrotto Terme, and Alba Balmaseda on community reappropriation of Healing Waters in contemporary Sicily. Rachele Dubbini engages in critical dialogue with Maddalena Bassani’s recent study, which places particular emphasis on the Fons Timavi and the Fons Aponi. Finally, Massimo Osanna and Jacopo Tabolli reflect on the Exhibition Itineraries of the Bronzes of San Casciano dei Bagni as interpretative devices, while the reviews by Maddalena Bassani, Monica Centanni further expand the temporal and conceptual horizons of water as a medium of ritual, knowledge, and memory.