SARIKAYA ROMA HAMAMIvisitor guide.

SARIKAYA ROMAN BATH Sarıkaya Roman Bath is situated in the town center of Sarıkaya, 77 km southeast of Yozgat, along the main highway route connecting the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. The bath is one of the rare Roman thermal baths constructed in Anatolia. In this structure, the underground thermal spring was utilized directly. Continually used with alterations and additions during the Eastern Roman, Seljuk, and Ottoman periods following the Roman era, the bath suffered substantial damage from municipal infrastructure works during the Republican Period. It is known that the settlement where the bath is located was named Aquae Sarvenae in the Roman Period and Therma Basilica in the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Period. Christian sources state that Saint Peter, one of the twelve apostles of Jesus Christ, passed through Therma Basilica on journeys from Sebasteia (Sivas) to Mazaca (Kayseri) and from Mazaca to Tavium (Büyüknefes Village, Yozgat). Following the 1071 Battle of Manzikert, the region gradually came under Turkish control. After the Danishmend, Seljuk, Mongol, Eretnid, Kadi Burhan al-Din, and Dulkadirid periods, the Ottoman Era began in 1521. It is documented that the thermal spring in the district center remained actively used during the Ottoman Period, that a settlement developed around the thermal springs, and that it was called Ilısu during this era. In the final years of the Ottoman Empire, this settlement was known as Hamam Village. In the early Republican Period, it was recorded in sources as Terzili Bath. Extending north-south with its decorated facade facing west, the monumental structure—approximately 30 meters long and 4.5 meters high, built of local marble arched masonry—revealed a semicircular marble-floored pool measuring 4.5 meters north-south and 3.5 meters east-west adjacent to its northern end, and symmetrically at its southern end a semicircular pool not yet fully cleared to floor level. East of the southern semicircular pool, investigations identified an underfloor-heated room whose floor paving had been destroyed, leaving only roughly dressed rectangular stone pillars. West of the arches, enhancing the complex's renown, a large semi-Olympic pool measuring roughly 23.30 meters by 12.80 meters and 1.34 meters deep draws attention, featuring partially deformed marble floor slabs and in its center a two-piece baptismal stone measuring 120 cm by 140 cm and 25 cm thick with a relief cross within a concave circle, believed to have served in the Eastern Roman Period. Built directly above a natural spring and immense for the region, splendid as a Nymphaeum in its dual-facade ornamentation, it was constructed around the mid-2nd century AD based on stylistic and archaeological finds. The thermal waters in Sarıkaya district center belong to the oligometallic water group containing fluoride, with a temperature of 48 °C and a flow rate of 28 l/sec (spring discharge is 48 °C, cooled to 38–40 °C for use). Analyses by the Ministry of Health show it serves under medical supervision as a supportive and complementary therapy for sciatic pain, painful gynecological ailments, ongoing discharges resulting from infection sequelae in women, spastic pain, spastic colitis, antispasmodic effects on ureters in passing kidney stones, liver and gallstones, and skin diseases.