Banys de la Reina

Despite the name, no queen ever bathed at the Banys de la Reina ("Queen's Baths"): it is the site of a Roman factory for salting fish and producing garum, on Punta de l'Arenal-Montañar, between Cap de Sant Antoni and Arenal beach in Jávea. The settlement was occupied for more than six hundred years, from the late 1st century BCE well into the 7th century CE, and formed part of a Roman seaside villa.

A factory cut into the rock

The site preserves two large tanks and around thirteen square pools cut directly into the soft tosca rock and lined with waterproof mortar. Two channels connected them to the sea to renew the water. Fish entrails and other parts were packed into these pools with salt and left to ferment in the sun, producing garum, the sauce that was then packed into amphorae and shipped across the Roman Empire. Garum was used across Roman territory much as salt is used today, and a production site of this size would have served local and regional demand along the coast rather than the large export trade run from bigger centres further south.

Discovery and what remains

The site came to light in 1963, when construction of a house at Punta de la Fontana uncovered the pools, prompting an emergency excavation led by archaeologists Gabriela Martín and María Dolores Serres between 1963 and 1964. Much of the original surroundings has since been lost to later building work, but the rock-cut pools remain visible next to the sea, a short distance from the Museu Arqueològic i Etnogràfic Soler Blasco, which displays material recovered from the site.