On an extensive plateau in the east of the city hill, the results of the geophysical prospection revealed a dense development oriented to an orthogonal grid. The dimensions of the buildings suggested that the public center of the city was located here. The results of the excavations confirmed this. A public bathing facility, the city archive and a large temple were identified and investigated.

The excavations initially concentrated on the Roman baths. In the center is a long rectangular hall, which is adjoined to the east and south by the bathing block. To the north-east is the 160m2 frigidarium with a cold-water pool surrounded by a colonnade and a corridor with a mosaic floor.

The mosaics have good parallels in the neighboring Zeugma, among others, and prove that they were created in the 2nd century A.D. The heated rooms, tepidarium and caldarium, adjoin to the south. Several sewers running under the floors provide information about the water management.

The Dolichen baths are evidence of the adoption of Roman bathing customs, as is also the case in other regions of the Near East, and show how Roman ideas of the city and urban culture shaped the life of Doliche in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD. In general, the baths bear witness to the monumentalization of the city and the use of materials and techniques that only came to Syria under Roman rule. The thermal baths are also valuable because they show the imperial state without late antique expansion measures. Despite its rudimentary preservation, the complex therefore makes an important contribution to our knowledge of bathing in imperial Syria.

To the east of the baths, the city archives of Doliche were located and partially excavated. The focus is on a large rectangular room, in whose thick layers of fill around 8,000 clay document seals have been recovered to date.

According to the document seals, the archive was in use from the late Hellenistic period until the middle of the 3rd century AD. The bundle of document seals is one of the largest closed find complexes of its kind from antiquity. Its complex imagery not only provides insights into the city’s administration, but also into the religious and cultural environment of Doliche.

When geophysical prospections were carried out in 2021 and search cuttings were made to the west of the baths in order to better understand the urban context of the baths, the structures found there were interpreted as temples from the Roman imperial period.

This assumption has since been confirmed by excavations. It is a monumental temple, approx. 60 x 40 m in size, which is characterized by its special architecture. It ends in the west in an apse, which is flanked by two side rooms.

The cella of the temple is divided into three naves by internal columns, the side naves were decorated with mosaic floors. The temple dates back to the 2nd century AD and may have been a temple for the imperial cult.

All three buildings were destroyed in the course of the Persian invasion in 253 AD. Instead, systematic looting took place in the course of the 4th century AD. A large, very well preserved lime kiln, which was discovered to the east of the bath complex, is connected to this.

The existence of furnaces for burning metal is indicated by finds of scrap metal, numerous fragments of bronze statues and slag. The former city center was thus transformed into an industrial zone dedicated to the recycling and upcycling of materials in late antiquity.