A couple of weeks ago, I had the luxury of visiting a Turkish bath, or hammam. I had been to the country several times before to visit my family but had never been in a hammam. Now that I have had the experience, I feel that everyone should experience it during their lifetime. However, we will not have the same appreciation of human if we do not understand the history of the Turkish bath.
The hammam dates to the time of the Byzantine Empire . At the time of the Byzantines, hammam had three different functions. The functions of the Turkish bath were to cleanse ritually as part of the Muslim faith, as a place to socialize and talk about what was going on in peoples’ lives and to show off the sultan’s power and wealth. In 1450, the Ottomans conquered the land from the Byzantines and continued social bathing with the hammam.
When I went into the Turkish bath, I was given a cotton wrap to wrap myself with in the changing room. Traditionally, the Turks used to also wear tall woodenclogs to prevent slipping. From there, I proceeded to the main room or “warming room”. This room had deep sinks along the marble, rounded walls and a large stone in the center where people get massages. There was also a hot room.
In the warming room, I mixed the hot and cold waters to bathe. I took trips to the “hot room” and would come back to bathe more in the warming room. In the hot room, the steam opens the pores. It It was hard to stay in that room and breathe without keeping the door partially open. At first I tried being a daredevil and keeping the door closed, but it felt so hot that I figured only the devil could be comfortable in there! I ended up having to keep the door open part of the way. The whole point of the hot room is to make you perspire!
Once I was clean and all my pores had opened, a masseuse used a rough mitt to rub me down. She then took a washcloth out of a bucket with soapy water and moved all the bubbles off of the washcloth into a pile on my back. The masseuse did this a few times. I felt excited because the way she seemed to slide the bubbles off of the washcloth seemed almost automatic. I then got a massage with all of the bubbles that smelled like olive oil soap!
The Turkish bath is an experience that I recommend for everyone. I feel as if it passed down so long throughout history because it does a great job opening the pores. I also feel that this practice continued throughout history because of the deep relaxation which it brings to the person bathing.You can go to any spa and relax, but hammam has both a simplicity and a history from its marble walls that can't be replicated.
