Ain Garci Hammam Biadha

Ain Garci Hammam Biadha, in the Zaghouan governorate of north-central Tunisia at the foot of Jebel Zaghouan — the mountain whose springs fed the great Roman aqueduct supplying Carthage — draws on sulfate thermal waters in a landscape whose hydraulic engineering heritage is among the most remarkable in the ancient world, where Roman water management transformed the landscape of North Africa. The naturally warm sulfate mineral waters, emerging from the limestone geology of the Zaghouan massif, are used in the Tunisian hammam therapeutic tradition for skin and rheumatic conditions in bathing facilities that continue the ancient North African thermal culture. The extraordinary Roman water heritage of the Zaghouan region — the Nympheum of Zaghouan temple to the water nymphs at the aqueduct's source, the 132-kilometre Roman aqueduct running northward to Carthage, and the ancient Ziqua settlement — gives Ain Garci Hammam Biadha one of the most archaeologically significant settings of any thermal spring destination in the Mediterranean world.