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Turkish Hamams -- bathing in marble splendor
There may be similarities between the Turkish hamam and ancient Roman baths, but as Muslims, Turks require running water and do not consider themselves clean if they have to immerse themselves in a tub . . Going to the hamam once upon a time used to be an outing for the women and young children of the family in Turkey. Dishes such as börek (pastry with various fillings), dolma (stuffed peppers), fruit and sweets would be prepared and then it was off for a day of bathing and massage, eating, singing, dancing and gossiping.
Perhaps it was a bayram (religious holiday) or there would be a young woman just coming of marriageable age who needed to be looked over for a possible arranged marriage or a ceremony such as those held on the occasion of a new born child's 40th day or a circumcision ceremony, bathing the bride or mourning. That was for the women. Men would meet with their male friends and, while history is silent about the eating and singing part, undoubtedly the men gossiped and made business deals as well.
Large hamams could handle men and women at the same time in two sections -- women entered by a separate door. Smaller hamams that only had accommodation for men or women who would have separate days.
A hamam consists of what is known as the camekan -- a square courtyard around a marble fountain with small cubicles where one could change. The second room is the soğukluk (small, cooling off room) and the third is the hararet, a domed or square room containing a heated marble platform called the navel stone.
Some have assumed that the Turks who entered Anatolia took over the baths used by the Byzantines but this apparently is not the case. After all there were baths in Central Asia, Russia and Mongolia from which the Turks derived theirs and if these weren't sufficient as resources, then as the tribes migrated through the Middle East to Anatolia, they would have picked up Persian and other Middle Eastern practices.
The difference for Muslims lies in how the Koran viewed cleansing and this could only be done by using running water -- a bathtub or swimming pool did not count towards cleanliness. Muslims were enjoined to pray five times a day and before each prayer service, he had to clean himself by washing his hands and forearms up to the elbow, the face, a quarter of the head and the feet. Hence there are fountains with spigots and troughs to catch the water in the courtyards of mosques. Since thermal baths involved pools, anyone going in these had to be thoroughly clean before entering.
Entering a hamam, one finds a large reception room, perhaps with interconnecting rooms. There would be rather broad raised platforms (marble) that ran around the sides of the room where people could recline on mats or carpets. Inside there are no lights usually. These were provided by ?glass eyes? inserted in the lead-covered dome. These were transparent and nipple-shaped with part of them sticking above the dome and the remainder going all the way through the dome structure to illuminate the interior.
If the hamam were large enough there would be wooden galleries forming an upper story where there were cubicles in which people could change out of their street clothes into one of the towels especially woven for the hamam, usually red or black stripes on white cotton that was used as wraparounds.
The second room is called the tepidarium, a room in which one could get used to the heat to some extent before going into the main hot room. Here one would find toilets and rooms in which attendants would remove any undesired hairs.
And then the piece-de-resistance, the hot room! This was also covered with a dome and had recessed niches in the walls that held basins of water. There would also be benches along the sides of the walls. In the middle was the so-called navel stone on which customers were pummeled and pulled, sanded and bullied into having one of the greatest cleansing experiences of their lives.
How was the place heated? There was something like a boiler room at the very end of the building or just below the hot room itself. There a fireplace, lower than the other floors, would be heated and the water in an enormous kettle would give off steam that would be taken by various pipes to the other rooms. The temperature in the hot room is supposed to be between 30 and 40 C.
The interesting aspects of hamams are that they weren't particularly decorated on the outside and weren't very large. One has only to examine the Haseki Hürrem Hamam, located between the Sultan Ahmed Mosque and the St. Sophia Museum. Today it has been restored and is being used to exhibit carpets and other cultural items under the management of Dösim, a creation of Turkey's Culture and Tourism Ministry. Here you can see almost all of the normal aspects of a hamam with the exception that this is a unique hamam where you can see the entire length of the double building. In other such hamams, you cannot see the remaining rooms in the building from the reception room. But at least you can get an idea of what a hamam looks like without having to be pummeled and sweated into a lump of flesh.
Today there are more than 200 hamams in Istanbul although many are in ruins or have been adapted for other purposes such as restaurants, tavernas or even hotels. In the 17th century, the travel writer Evliya Çelebi wrote how hamams were built and distributed throughout the old city after the conquest so that the people would have a place to wash themselves as Islam required. And the expense of repairing them were undertaken by Fatih Sultan Mehmed.
Today's hamams:
Some of the adaptations are quite inventive. The Tahtakale hamam that dates back to the time of Fatih Sultan Mehmed in the 15th century was eventually turned into a coffeehouse, unfortunately minus the navel stone. The 16th century Hüsrev Kethuda Hamamı in Ortaköy is an upscale restaurant. The old hamam near the Four Seasons Hotel at Sultan Ahmet has been made into a hotel named appropriately perhaps the Empress Zoe. The rooms are quite small but interestingly designed. Other hamams serve as depots or workplaces for auto repairs and the like.
Most likely hamams will continue to exist for tourists and in some special places such as Cağaloğlu and Galatasaray but they are no longer of real importance except for tourists or as some kind of novel experience. The residents of Istanbul today have bathrooms with showers or baths inside their own homes. The need has passed but once upon a time these were institutions, part of everybody's life.
Niki Gamm
ISTANBUL - Turkish Daily News