Campo Valdés Roman baths

The public baths were constructed in Cimadevilla^[1] near the end of the first century A.D. during the Roman occupation of the Iberian Peninsula.^[2][3] It used the hypocaust heating system and contained a sudatorium, apodyterium, frigidarium, tepidarium, and caldarium.^[1] The site gradually expanded until it fell out of use in the fourth century.^[2][3] In the Middle Ages, it was used as a necropolis, and in the 19th century, a plaza was constructed over the buried baths.^[1][2]

The then-forgotten baths were rediscovered during the construction of a sewer system in the area in March 1903.^[4] Locals Calixto Alvargonzález Landeau and Julio Somoza led the excavation efforts.^[2][4] Three years after the excavation, Alvargonzález wrote a detailed monograph describing at great length the uncovered structure, materials, and artifacts; the monograph was not published until 1965, 55 years after his death.^[4] In 1987, the baths were declared a Bien de Interés Cultural; three years later, a team led by archeologists Carmen Fernández Ochoa and Paloma García Díaz carried out further excavation and restoration on the site.^[3][5]

Following the secondary excavations, the site of the baths was converted into an underground museum, which opened in March 1995.^[2] The museum is split into two sections, an "informative zone" and an "archeological zone."^[5] The archeological zone allows visitors to walk along a catwalk through the separate rooms of the old bathhouse. Artifacts found on the site, a sarcophagus, and placards and models detailing the baths' history are on display in the informative zone.^[1][5] In 2023, 113,004 people passed through the museum, making it Gijón's most visited museum that year.^[6]