Un santuario salutare dal territorio di Neapolis: Agnano

The Roman baths of Agnano are one of the biggest archaeological complexes of Neapolis; it’s on the border between this last and Puteoli, along the road that connected the two centers. The area was intensely busy beginning from the augustean age, but the site was jus occupied in Hellenistic epoch. The archaeological complex of Agnano’s baths is composed by four separate archaeological (complex of Hellenistic age, grotta del Cane, thermal complex of Roman age, bridge of Roman age); all these areas are inside the area currently occupied by the modern Thermal baths of Agnano. This area has never reentered to full in the affairs of the researchers and it has remained for long periods to the borders of the archaeological search. To the area of the thermal baths of Roman age they are tightly connected the structures of the socalled Grotta del Cane, currently inaccessible for the elevated temperature and the presence of poisonous gas, as well as the complex of Hellenistic age. This last is constituted by a mighty terrace-wall in blocks of tufo, on which some structures of Roman age have been founded. The wall, partially covered by the water of a source of mineral water, was also in ancient time connected to a source, as it testifies a channel, always in blocks of tufo, that cross it. The presence of a fragment of black glaze ware with the inscribed name Igea, recovered in the layers of foundation of the channel, give us the possibility to hypothesize the pertinence of the structures to a sanctuary devoted to Asclepio and Igea. The complex of Roman age is distant from the Greek structures and, at the moment, there is no trace of a direct relationship among the two buildings.