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Bakery and sentry post

An ideal location In Roman times, a number of narrow terraced houses were located at the foot of a massive revetment wall directly opposite the theatre. Some of them had a masonry ground floor and a top floor in timber-frame construction. Their designs showed that the excellent choice of location for commercial purposes was suitably exploited.

Educational Bread bake house at the northern foot of Schönbühl hill
Today:		In Roman times:
Over the years, the buildings along this row of houses opposite the theatre were used for different purposes. Between approximately AD 250 and AD 275, several buildings contained ovens such as this extremely well preserved example. Some of the bread produced by these bakeries was probably earmarked for military use, as soldiers were stationed in Augusta Raurica at that time in order to intervene in case of conflict. Weapons discovered in the burnt rubble above the oven must have originated from the top storey and may constitute evidence of such conflict. This is the reason why we call this site 'bakery and sentry post'. After AD 275, the army eventually fortified the Kastelen hill above the bakery.
On the ground floor: a bakery
Trompe l'oeil: plastered timber-frame wall and 'view' of the theatre through a door and window.
Today, the house shrine with its four deities is reconstructed in the bakery.
Four bronze statuettes found together probably originated from a lararium and constitute one of only a small number of groups preserved from Roman house shrines (two statuettes of Mercury, one of Minerva and one of a dwarf).
Very rarely does a Roman civilian town reveal so many weapon fragments in such close proximity: one short and three long swords, nine chapes (end pieces) of sword scabbards made of iron, bronze, bone and ivory, eight lanceheads and projectile points, and two knives with decorated scabbards.
On the upper floor: a sentry post
A large conflagration destroyed the building around AD 275. Besides pottery, the excavations also revealed a number of burnt bronze figures of deities from a house shrine in the rubble. Its original location remains unknown. Today, it is reconstructed in the bakery. The burnt rubble also revealed numerous parts of weapons, however, no complete set of soldiers' equipment but rather a collection of individual pieces such as swords, sword scabbard parts and lanceheads. Therefore, the assumption is that the storey above the bakery was used as a sentry post and depository for weapon parts by a small unit of troops.
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