Domus del Chirurgo, Archaeological site in central Rimini, Italy
The Domus del Chirurgo is an archaeological site in central Rimini containing the preserved remains of a Roman residential building. The site sits within a large glass structure that covers it on Piazza Ferrari.
The house was built in the second half of the 2nd century AD and remodelled later that century, when a peristyle area was converted into new living rooms. It was abandoned after a sudden fire that destroyed it completely; the latest coins found in the rubble date to 257 and 258, which dates the blaze. The surgeon Eutyches is known from a 3rd-century graffito scratched on the cubiculum wall, probably by a grateful patient.
The name comes from the surgical kit found in the room of Orpheus, where a bronze box had fallen from a shelf. A graffito on the cubiculum wall, scratched in third-century script where a patient's bed stood, is thought to record the physician's name, Eutyches, left as thanks for treatment. Many Greek inscriptions on the pottery suggest he came from the Greek-speaking east.
The excavated rooms lie about 2.5 m below street level and are viewed from transparent suspended walkways, so you look down on the mosaics rather than walking on them. The site is covered by a glass structure on Piazza Ferrari, in the centre of Rimini, and the finds themselves are kept in the Museo della Città.
More than 150 medical instruments were discovered here, representing one of the most complete sets of Roman surgical tools ever found in a single location. These tools offer a rare window into ancient medical practice and the daily work of a Roman physician.
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