Based on the UAM/MIAS ‘Tomás y Valiente’ project entitled Healing spas in Antiquity (2018-2023), we are developing the MICINN project THERMASCAPE dedicated to the archaeological analysis of bathing culture with mineral-medicinal waters since the Antiquity from a territorial and diachronic point of view.

Our main goal is to improve our knowledge about the origin of modern spas and its role in each territory during centuries. So, mainly from an archaeological perspective, we need to go further in our research recovering all the information already considered, attending not only to the content, but also to the continent, incorporating new disciplines, new methodologies and alternative tools and sources of information that allow the creation of a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary proposal on this culture of water. We start from the hypothesis that mineral-medicinal waters were a natural resource of great importance during the history. But what was the role played by healing spas in the territory?

According to this project we want to provide to the scientific community the results of our research to generate a reference point to check and consult the data of our research, including various useful tools available online: a database with those ancient texts linked to thermalism as well as a glossary of thermal terms in Greek and Latin, Spanish and English (González Soutelo & Romano 2023); geodata (shapefiles) to recognise the distribution of the healing spa heritage in each region; show specific bibliography and data; updated information, etc., to create a healing spas network all around the Mediterranean sea.