This is the play by play...but with no photos of course... it is an ITC (Inability to capture) due to privacy laws and having to keep this blog rated PG :)
My personal definition of a Hammam is a public bath where women from the local community gather to praise, treat, and pamper none only but themselves (and their children). A Hammam is a place where women pay 100% attention to their body, no matter what shape or size and to help cleanse their souls from the inside out. The Hammam is a place where women have access to clean, running, hot, water- something many of us from first world countries truly take for granted and something that many of those from third world countries do not have in their homes.
The Hammam I experienced was made up of two hot steamy common rooms with pipes running along the walls, one painted red for hot water and another painted blue for cold water. There were basins attached to the wall about 1.5 m away from each other where 2 faucets were conveniently placed over top of each...one with cold water and one with hot. There were little stools, at least one per basin, maybe more, where one sat in front of the running water-- that precious water to wash the dirt, worries, and negative feelings away into the communal drain in the middle of each room. (*notice the symbolism here)
Tools required:
- Running water- provided.
- Little plastic buckets- provided.
- Exfoliating glove- brought or bought.
- Massive luffa sponge- brought or bought.
- Soap- brought or bought.
- Shampoo and Conditioner- brought or bought.
- Clay powder which mixes with water as a hair removal product- brought or bought.
- A woman who is hired to do the dirty work for you- *If you are given the star treatment as we were, you hire her, which we did.
- Your birthday suit- *but us being shy western world women did not take off our bottoms while our tops were forced off of us by the woman who did the scrubbing.
The procedure:
1- Changed into bathing suits with serongs over top
2-Went into the room and sat on the little stools
3- Woman started running water into the basins
4- Used the plastic buckets to pour water over us
5- Bathing suit tops ripped off of us as we're holding our gems
6- Woman forcefully scrubbing us with exfoliating gloves- pretty soon, we're sprawled out letting this woman scrub the filth off of us...
7- Scrub and rinse, scrub and rinse
8- After a FULL body scrub as the dead skin/dirt washes away, we are given a full rinse down...
9- Then head into another room wrapped in our serongs where this clay mixture is smothered all over our bodies
10- Sit there and wait for it to dry- about 10 minutes later...
11- Go back into the communal bath and lightly scrub/rinse off the clay mixture
12- Woman gets a massive luffa sponge insanely lathered up with soap
13- And starts lathering up our whole bodies...
14- A full rinse again...
15- She then mixes shampoo in a little bucket with water and shampoos our hair while massaging our scalp...
16- Repeat of step 15 (yes, shampoos twice)
17- Puts conditioner in our hair
18- A full head to toe- full body rinse
19- Escorted it out with two fresh towels, one for the body, one for the hair
20- Rest in the changing area on some benches (yes, this is part of the process-- we were instructed to do so) I guess this helps with allowing your body, mind, and skin to regulate back to room temperature
21-Drink an Orangina- which of course originated in Boufarik
22- Get dressed
23- Thank the women profusely
24- Leave feeling refreshed, relaxed, and the cleanest I have ever felt. My skin will never be as soft as the moment I walked out of there....
It was a heavenly 2-3 hour experience.... I am so blessed to have been exposed to it... especially in a small town with local people... not some spa transformed Hammam...which I am sure has its pros too....but you don't get a more cultural experience than that one. Wow.
Okay, now you can read up on what wiki had to say about it:
Turkish bath
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia(Redirected from Hammam)
A Turkish bath provided for a harem
A Turkish bath (Turkish: Hamam) is the Turkish variant of a sauna, distinguished by a focus on water, as opposed to steam.
In Western Europe, the Turkish bath as a method of cleansing the body and relaxation was particularly popular during the Victorian era. The process involved in taking a Turkish bath is similar to that of a sauna, but is more closely related to ancient Greek and ancient Roman bathing practices.
A person taking a Turkish bath first relaxes in a room (known as the warm room) that is heated by a continuous flow of hot, dry air allowing the bather to perspire freely. Bathers may then move to an even hotter room (known as the hot room) before splashing themselves with cold water. After performing a full body wash and receiving a massage, bathers finally retire to the cooling-room for a period of relaxation.
Architecture
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 "Çemberlitaş Hamamı" in Istanbul, built in 1584.
Similar to its Roman ancestors, a typical hamam consists of three basic, interconnected rooms: the sıcaklık (or hararet -caldarium), which is the hot room; the warm room (tepidarium), which is the intermediate room; and the soğukluk, which is the cool room (frigidarium).
The sıcaklık usually has a large dome decorated with small glass windows that create a half-light; it also contains a large marble stone called göbek taşı (tummy 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 soğukluk 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.
Some accessories of Roman times survive in modern hamams, such as the peştemal (a special cloth of silk and/or cotton to cover the body, like a pareo), nalın (wooden clogs that prevent slipping on the wet floor, or mother-of-pearl), kese (a rough mitt for massage), and sometimes jewel boxes, gilded soap boxes, mirrors, henna bowls, and perfume bottles.
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 Fazil bin Tahir Enderuni.
A harem bathhouse, from the Zanan-nameh by Fazil-Yildiz, late 18th century.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.[1] 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 Dellâkname-i Dilküşâ, eighteenth century work by Dervish, Ismail Agha; Ottoman archives, Süleymaniye, Istanbul).[2][3]
They were recruited from among the ranks of the non-Muslim subject nations of the Turkish empire, such as Greeks, Armenians, Jews, 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 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[4] that scrub and give massages.
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 Király Baths are currently open to the general public, while Racz Thermal Bath is just being reconstructed, opening 2010, and the Császár Spa Bath is not a public thermal bath.
Introduction of Turkish baths to Western Europe
The 16th century Ottoman era Rudas Baths near Budapest in Hungary. The Király Baths are from the same period.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 wrote The Pillars of Hercules, a book about his travels in 1848 through Spain and Morocco. He described the system of dry hot-air baths used there and in the Ottoman Empire that had changed little since Roman times.
In 1856, Richard Barter read Urquhart's book and worked with him to construct a bath. They opened the first modern Turkish bath in the United Kingdom at St Ann's Hydropathic Establishment near Blarney, County Cork, Ireland.[5][6] 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.
At the time of writing (May 2010) there are just sixteen 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.
So neat! Such a great experience!
ReplyDeleteGreat article ^^
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