XIV century bathing

Date: 2022-10-30, 14:00
Organizer : Lithuanian Bath Academy

After the Assembly's presentations, we offer you an excursion to the historic 14th-century smoke bath we reconstructed 2 years ago at the Kernavė State Archaeological Museum. This bathhouse illustrates how the inhabitants of the Lithuanian castle suburb bathed 600 years ago. However, the bathhouse is just one detail of a motley medieval town. How did people live and what did they do at that time? What was their lifestyle and customs like? What do we know about Kernavė at all, except that it is the old capital of Lithuania? But people settled in those places much earlier... Could they have had baths too?

The tour starts with a visit to the reconstructed town surrounding the castle at that time. It was home to the various craftsmen who served the court - blacksmiths, potters, carpenters, and basket weavers. The museum guide will tell you about the everyday life and customs of the inhabitants of those times.

Not only will we have a unique opportunity to get acquainted with the museum's exposition and broaden our knowledge of history, but we will also have the opportunity to have a live conversation with the archaeologist who has been studying the Old Baths of Kernavė, Professor Aleksiejas Luchtans. Weather permitting, we hope to have the opportunity to walk around the mounds and go to where the old Kernavė bathhouse once stood.

During the tour, you will also taste Lithuanian medieval food, and you will also see the ancient smoke pirtis and its preparation for bathing:

• stacking the stones in the sauna stove
• the old method of tying the whisks
• starting the fire with a splitter
• lighting the sauna with balanis
• cleaning the stones
• making hot water with rocks heated in the stove
• the production of washing alkali from wood ash

Reconstructional bathing in Kernave pirtis 2022.

We will finish the tour in the sauna, where you will have your first steam ritual, a hot soak, a cold outdoor bath, a traditional body wash with lye and wort, and after the sauna, a bucket of home-brewed beer and a certificate of historical bathing.

Historical bath is presented by Rimas Kavaliauskas and Birute Masiliauskiene - Lithuanian Bath Masters

The main partner of the event