Kourion Complex Palace

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fall, gave support to the mosaic above. We strengthened this support as best we could. It is planned during the spring to lift this mosaic, to explore the cistern under it, to ascertain the stratification, and to reset it in a more enduring bed.

By luck, one of the niches is still preserved in situ on the side. There are two steps leading down into it and an outlet on the bottom to drain off the water. 14 Beside the mosaic there is a foot bath, also with a drain.

In the middle of the eastern side of the mosaic is another frigidarium with foot-bath adjoining the mosaic. This bath is smaller. The floor is composed of a mosaic designed to represent the waves of the sea. I am told that there is a similar pattern in a bath at Antioch. Mosaics were not unknown in the Roman Empire as floors for baths. 16

The two rooms on either side of this small bath, I consider to be some form of apodyteria. The floor of the northern is unlike any other floor in the building and appears to be water-resistant. However the walls are not water-resistant. The only plausible explanation which I can at present think of is that this was used as a place to disrobe. The room to the south of this small bath is somewhat similar. Here two floors are visible. The lower one, below the level of the mosaic, is slightly similar to that on the north. The top layer, level with the mosaic, is composed of rough stones. There is a wall inside the outside wall of about the same width as the outside wall which I consider to be the base of a stone bench used for sitting or placing the clothes after disrobing.

The room opposite this on the west side of the mosaic was certainly a bath with a marble floor. This bath was built directly over a high drain. This drain runs from a pipe under the mosaic into the room west of the bath. Here it was at a later date intentionally filled up. The stones shown in the drawing in the room into which the drain flows, are part of its continuation.