Discovering The Wonders Behind The History of Turkish Baths

The Ottoman Empire is one of the most powerful civilizations in the world between early medieval times and the 20th century. But in its earlier times the Ottoman Turks have used much of several different influences to shape their own unique culture. Such can be seen in their arts, architecture, music, literature and sciences.

Though the Ottoman Empire had several different influences in their secular aspects, they only have one religion- Islam. One may say; it is because of Islam that the Ottoman Empire has become unique despite its incorporation of European and Eastern aspects. Everything in Ottoman Empire is being stubbed with a patent "Islamic", from the smallest trinkets to the largest tower complexes.

Such evidence of Islam and secular conglomeration can be seen in their baths. Turkish baths are unique because they seem to be the best of all the late antiquities era can offer. Turkish baths incorporate the best of the Roman West and the several different aspects of eastern influences taken from India, the Baltic, and Slavic worlds.

As a Muslim nation, the Ottomans' first architectural priority was the mosque. However, a genius architect name Mimar Sinan was able to create auxiliary buildings all around the sacred dome-like mosque, and such auxiliary buildings included the 'hamam' or the hot baths. It not only made it scientifically practical and sound, it also deemed the structures sacred.

An Ottoman spa, like its Roman predecessors, is a multi-faceted public bath house. But unlike the Roman extravagance, they limit the division of rooms up to three practical uses according their temperatures. The first room is called the hot room, the second room is called warm room and, the third room is called the cool room.

The first room is where customers of the public bath come to prepare for bathing, such as scrub massage. One unique feature of the hot room is that it borrows the Slavic and Scandinavian aspects of steam bath, where the entire room is saturated with hot humid air. Customers lie down on a marble slab in the middle of the room where each corners of the walls have fountains.

The second room is where customers wash themselves with soap and water. Another remarkable aspect of cultural harmony in Ottoman Empire can be seen from the creation of traditional Jewish bath tubs for women in the warm room. Finally, the third room is where customers dress up, take refreshments and sometimes, even take a nap in private cubicles.

Such is the extravagance of the Turkish bath, it is seemingly hard to believe that the type of modern luxury in the 15th century. Traditional Turkish baths have become widely popular in Victorian UK. The Ottoman Empire truly contributed much to the contemporary global society, and their traditional spa has been an inalienable part of that global cultural evolution of human bathing practices.