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Turkish Bath
Etymology
ammm is from the Arabic root mm with a general meaning of “heat”, from which many words referring to “hot spring”, “fever” etc. According to Ibn Sidah ammm is derived from al-amm “the vehemence of summer heat” (Lane).
The word ammm simply means “bathroom” or “toilet” in many dialects of vernacular Arabic, while it means hot springs or spa town in other dialects.
Architecture
Inside a modern hamam
The hamam combines the functionality and the structural elements of its predecessors in Anatolia, the Roman thermae and Byzantine baths, with the Central Asian Turkish tradition of steam bathing, ritual cleansing and respect of water. It is also known that Arabs have built many of their own version of the Greek-Roman baths they encountered following their conquests of Alexandria. However, the Turkish bath has a more improved style and functionality from these structures that emerged as annex buildings of mosques or as re-use of the remaining Roman baths.
The hamams in the Ottoman culture started out as structural elements serving as annexes to mosques, however quickly evolved into institutions and eventually with the works of the Ottoman architect Sinan, into monumental structural complexes, the finest example being the “emberlita Hamam” in Istanbul, built in 1584.
A typical hamam consists of three interconnected basic rooms similar to its Roman ancestors: the scaklk (or hararet -caldarium) which is the hot room, the warm room (tepidarium) which is the intermediate room and the soukluk which is the cool room.
A Turkish bath provided for a harem.
The scaklk usually has a large dome decorated with small glass windows that create a half-light; it also contains a large marble stone at the center that the customers lie on, and niches with fountains in the corners. This room is for soaking up steam and getting scrub massages. The warm room is used for washing up with soap and water and the soukluk is to relax, dress up, have a refreshing drink, sometimes tea, and where available, nap in private cubicles after the massage. A few of the hamams in Istanbul also contain mikvehs, ritual cleansing baths for Jewish women.[citation needed]
The hamam, like its early precursors, Roman (at least pre-Christian) thermae, is not exclusive to men – hamam complexes usually contain separate quarters for men and women, or alternatively they are admitted at separate times. Being social centers, in the Ottoman Empire, hamams were quite abundant, and were built in almost every Ottoman city. Integrated in daily life, they were centers of social gatherings, populated on almost every occasion with traditional entertainment (e.g. dancing and food, especially in the women’s quarters) and ceremonies, such as before weddings, high-holidays, celebrating newborns, beauty trips etc.
There existed some special accessories of which some are still used at modern hamams: such as the petemal (a special cloth of silk and/or cotton to cover the body, like a pareo), naln (wooden clogs that would prevent the wearer from slipping on the wet floor, often decorated with silver or mother-of-pearl), kese (a rough mitt for massage), and sometimes jewel boxes, gilded soap boxes, mirrors, henna bowls, perfume bottles and such.
Tellak (Staff)
Tellak
Detail of an illustration from the Hubanname (The Book of the Handsome Ones), supposedly an eighteenth century homoerotic work. Date of publication uncertain. Said to be by the Turkish poet Fazyl bin Tahir Enderuni.
Hamam Omerye
The Bowery “Ten Cent Turkish Bath” New York C. 1884
A Harem bathhouse.
Traditionally, the masseurs in the baths, tellak in Turkish, who were young men, helped wash clients by soaping and scrubbing their bodies. They also worked as sex workers. We know today, by texts left by Ottoman authors, who they were, their prices, how many times they could bring their customers to orgasm, and the details of their sexual practices (From the Dellkname-i Dilk, eighteenth century work by Dervish, Ismail Agha; Ottoman archives, Sleymaniye, Istanbul).
They were recruited from among the ranks of the non-Muslim subject nations of the Turkish empire, such as Greeks, Armenians, Jews, Albanians, Bulgarians, Roma and others.
At times the relationship between a tellak and his client became intensely personal. It is recorded that in the mid-18th century, a janissary an elite soldier in the Ottoman army, also often of European descent had a tellak for a lover. When the latter was kidnapped by the men of another regiment and given over to the use of their commander, a days-long battle between the two janissary regiments ensued, which was brought to an end only when the Sultan ordered the tellak hanged.
After the defeat and dismemberment of the Ottoman army in the early 20th century, the role of tellak boys was filled by adult attendants that scrub and give massage.
Operating Examples
Dating back to French rule and located in the heart of Nicosia’s old town is Hamam Omerye – a true working example of Cyprus’s rich culture and diversity, hard struggle, yet sense of freedom and flexibility. The site’s history dates back to the 14th century, when it stood as an Augustinian church of St. Mary. Stone-built, with small domes, it is chronologically placed at around the time of Frankish and Venetian rule, approximately the same time that the city acquired its Venetian Walls. In 1571, Mustapha Pasha converted the church into a mosque, believing that this particular spot is where the Khalifa Omar rested during his visit to Lefkosia. Most of the original building was destroyed by Ottoman artillery, although the door of the main entrance still belongs to the 14th century Lusignan building, whilst remains of a later Renaissance phase can be seen at the north-eastern side of the monument. In 2003, the [EU] funded a bi-communal UNDP/UNOPS project, “Partnership for the Future”, in collaboration with Nicosia Municipality and Nicosia Master Plan.
Budapest has four working Turkish Baths, all from the 16th century: Rudas Baths and Kirly Baths are currently open to the general public, while Rcz Thermal Bath is just being reconstructed opening 2010 and the Csszr Spa Bath is not a public thermal bath.
Introduction of Turkish baths to Western Europe
Turkish baths were introduced to the United Kingdom by David Urquhart, diplomat and sometime Member of Parliament for Stafford, who for political and personal reasons wished to popularize Turkish culture. In 1850 he had written The Pillars of Hercules, a book about his travels in Spain and Morocco in 1848, in which he described the system of dry hot-air baths which had been in use there, and in the Ottoman Empire, very little changed from those which had been so popular in Roman times.
In 1856, Richard Barter, having read Urquhart’s book and worked on the construction of a bath with him, opened the first modern Turkish bath in the United Kingdom at St Ann’s Hydropathic Establishment near Blarney, County Cork, Ireland. The following year, the first bath of its type to be built in England since Roman times was opened in Manchester, and the idea spread rapidly through the north of England. It reached London in July 1860 when Roger Evans, a member of one of Urquhart’s Foreign Affairs Committees, opened a Turkish bath at 5 Bell Street, near Marble Arch.
During the following 150 years, well over 600 baths opened in Britain, while similar Turkish baths opened in cities in other parts of the then British Empire. Dr. John Le Gay Brereton, who had given medical advice to bathers in a Foreign Affairs Committee-owned Turkish bath in Bradford, travelled to Sydney, Australia, and opened a Turkish bath there in Spring Street in 1859, even before the bath had reached London. Canada had one by 1869, and the first one in New Zealand was opened in 1874. Urquhart’s influence was felt even outside the Empire when, in 1863, Dr. Charles Shepard opened the first Turkish bath in the United States at 63 Columbia Street, Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn.
Today there are just fourteen Turkish baths remaining open in the United Kingdom, although hot-air baths still thrive in the form of Russian steam baths and the Finnish sauna.
See also
Alhama (Spanish placename) and Alfama (Portuguese placename) derive from the Arabic word.
Bath house
Culture of the Ottoman Empire
Gellrt Baths
Hamam Omerye Baths
Harem
Haseki Hrrem Sultan Hamam
Kirly Baths
Kek
Bacch
Onsen and sent, the Japanese equivalents
Soapland
Steam Shower
Sleymaniye hamam
Footnotes
^ (Toledano 2003, p. 242) “[Flaubert, January 1850:] Be informed, furthermore, that all of the bath-boys are bardashes [male homosexuals].”
^ (Gazali 2001, p. 106)
^ Kemal Slay (1994). Nedim and the poetics of the Ottoman court. Indiana University. ISBN 1878318098.
^ (Yilmazkaya & Deniz 2005) discusses occasional licentious activity
References
Cosgrove, J. J. (2001), Design of the Turkish Bath, Books for Business, ISBN 9780894990786, http://books.google.com/books?id=D4cHAAAACAAJ
Gazali, Mnif Fehim (2001), Book of Shehzade, Dnence, ISBN 9789757054177, http://books.google.com/books?id=PY2LAAAAIAAJ
Toledano, Ehud R. (2003), State and Society in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Egypt, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 9780521534536, http://books.google.com/books?id=uDQJvkYcTeEC
Yilmazkaya, Orhan; Deniz, Ogurlu (2005), Turkish Baths: A Light Onto a Tradition and Culture (2 ed.), itlembik, ISBN 9789756663806, http://books.google.com/books?id=psdNPwAACAAJ
Meunier, Pascal (2009), The last hammams of Cairo A Disappearing Bathhouse Culture, American University in Cairo, ISBN 978 977 416 243 5, http://books.google.com/books?id=Rlvp2KmeZMUC&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+last+hammams+of+cairo&ei=zN6ES7qiEqO4ywSFie3rCg&hl=fr&cd=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Hammams
Hamam History
Hamams in Islamic tradition (cyberbohemia.com)
Photos of Hamams in Muslim and Arabic countries
Baths in Syria, Iran, Turkey, Morocco, Yemen…
The last public bathhouses of Cairo : photos by Pascal Meunier
Introduction of Turkish baths to Europe
Comprehensive site on the Victorian Turkish bath
Other
Michael Palin at Turkish baths in Istanbul – BBC (From Pole to Pole) Uploaded by BBCWorldwide to Youtube
How To Bathe In A Turkish Bath: A Guide For Foreigners
Categories: Turkish culture | Bathing | Ottoman architecture | Turkish architectureHidden categories: Articles containing Arabic language text | All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements from January 2008
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