The Nazareth country club where Jesus bathed?

The story between Elias and Martina Shama and the Ancient Bath House in Nazareth began 25 years ago, when they bought the property to house their jewelry store. During renovation work, the couple discovered an almost perfectly preserved ancient Roman bath house, sprawling out over an area of approximately 1000 square meters, emphasizing the uniqueness of Nazareth as a thriving and vibrant city. They put everything they had into the preservation of this bath house, and this room became an integral part of their lives, dreams, and aspirations.

The bath house is located near Mary’s Well, where, according to Christian tradition, the Angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and announced that she would bear the Son of God. Elias eagerly tells the place’s story, saying that "the state of the store was horrible when we received it in 1993. It had been for sale for over a decade and the place looked like ruins. During the renovations we found interesting details around the store, which caused us to begin our adventure with the story tied to this place.”

---

“At first, we uncovered antique ceramic tubing covered with soil and small stones,” Elias recalls. “We cleaned it to display it as part of the jewelry store, to make the store look nice, but we did not know its value, and only understood its true archaeological value in 2000.”

As Elias and Martina receive visitors in the bath, Elias says he began to notice the dampness that spread through the building and, worse, the sewage water flooding in. To address the problem, he started digging into the walls and the flooring and, much to his surprise, unearthed a network of ceramic pipes and heating ducts unique to bath houses.

A once in a lifetime investment

Elias, a Christian Arab, and his Belgian wife Martina, put everything they had and more into renovating the site. "In 2000 we received a loan from the Bank of Belgium, with Martina's mother acting as guarantor: she put up a seven-story building in Antwerp, but we were unable to repay our debts and so Martina's mother was forced to sell her building along with the restaurant on the first floor in order to repay the loan and supported us with the remaining amount after the sale."

In 1993 investigators from the Israel Antiquities Authority said the bathhouse was built in the late Ottoman era, circa 1885, and was of no archaeological interest. "The Authority's lack of interest in the artifact allowed us to keep digging. We did tours for tourists and all those curious to see a Turkish bath," Elias explains.

"At that time we turned to many specialists from Israel and abroad, all of whom said it was not a Turkish bath, instead dating it all the way back to the Hellenistic era. In fact, certain details in the design put it at being built around 100 BC."

Elias quoted the travel writer Rabbi Moses Bassola, who arrived in the Holy Land in 1542 from Italy, who had cited in his writings "a bathhouse with hot water where the mother of Jesus bathed." A more contemporary author believes Jesus and Joseph took part in the construction of the bathhouse.

"Three years ago a Vatican film crew came here to do a documentary on the bath house since it's a uniquely sacred site for Christians. The film was seen by many, and many others were made on the subject."

A Hellenistic club

While Elias and Martina are partial owners of the bathhouse, the original dimensions of the complex is some thousand square meters. "Behind the arc there's the furnace and the hot steam room, then, there's the restaurant, and another one that's near the cold room."

Pointing to the arc at the entrance, Elias says "above it there was a restaurant with rooms six-meters long and three-meters wide, and behind it two underground water storage tanks, each one 200 square meters in size. It was a Hellenistic country club!"

A whole life's work

Despite the number of visitors, the return on the Shamas' huge investment isn't great, and lately they suffered losses doing additional conservation work. Moreover, a lawsuit against them ended with a court ruling that they cannot display the bath house "for commercial purposes," hitting at their source of income. Elias says he's hopeful a solution can be found.

"The preservation of the site is not an easy task and takes great effort," Elias says. "Unfortunately our resources are limited, it's just Martina, myself, and a girl who comes twice a week to help us out with the bath. My wife had a heart episode recently, she cannot exert herself like before."

He ruminates on their situation. "We get no government or municipal assistance. It is with great frustration that I look back to 25 years ago when we took on an abandoned site and turned it into a vibrant tourist magnet, investing all our money in the process, and all we get in return is lawsuits. Yet we remain hopeful that our lives' work will be fruitful, we won't give up."

Heba Zoabi is an i24news web editor on the Arabic language desk