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**********TURKISH BATH (HAMMAM) HISTORY**********
 The tradition of the turkish bath extends far back, to a time before turks had reached Anatolia. When the turks arrived in Anatolia, they brought with them one bathing tradition, and were confronted with another, that of Romans and Byzantines, with certain local variants. The traditions merged, and with the addition of the moslem concern for cleanliness and its concomitant respect fort the uses of water, there arose an entirely new concept, that of the turkish bath. In time it became an institution, with its system of ineradicable customs.
For the turkish bath was much more then just a place to cleanse the skin. It was intimately bound up with everyday life, a place where people of every rank and station, young and old, rich and poor, townsman or villager, could come freely.Women as well as men made use of the ‘hamam’, as the bath is known in Turkish, although of course at separate hours.
From the individual’s point of view, the hamam was familiar place from the earliest weeks of life right up to its very end. Important occasýons durýng a lýfespan were, and in some township still are, celebrated with rejoicing at the bath. The newborn’s fortieth day, the brides bathing complete with food and live music, and the Avowal are instances. The latter requires some explanation, for it revolved the custom common in Anatolia of making a promise or vow, contingent on the fulfilment of some important wish. The celebration of this in the hamam was arranged and paid for by the parson fulfilling his vow, and was open to one and all.
The hamam ceremony of mourning, on the other hand, was far different, but also widespread. The Hospitality bathing was simply the taking of one’s house-guest to the hamam for a wash. Then there were the Circumcision, Groom’s, and off-to-the-Army bathings, and others besides. As we see, the whole culture of a people had the Turkish bath as one of its important nexuses.
Naturally, there was a range of equipment associated with a hamam visit, and until recently one might count from 15 to 20 articles in the bundle which a woman brought along with her. Let’s see these bundles:
The ‘pestemal’ (pesh-te-mahl), a large towel fringed at the both ends and wrapped around the torso, from below the armpits to about mid-thigh, as the woman made her way to the ‘kurna’ or marble basin. The pestemal would be striped or checked, a colored mixture of silk and cotton, or pure cotton, or even pure silk.
A pair of wooden clogs or patterns, in Turkish ‘nalin’, of which there were many varied types. Carved exquisitely, these patterns kept the wearer’s feet clear of the wet floor. They would be embellished in a number of ways, most often with mother-of-pearl, or even sheathed in tooled silver. They might have jingles, or a woven straw sheath, or be applied with felt or brass.
The ‘tas’, or bowl for pouring water over the body, was always of metal. Whether silver, gilt or tinned copper, or of brass, the tas always had grooved and inlaid ornamentation.
The ‘kese’ ( keh-she), that rough cloth mitt carried in the soap case, not only scoured the dirt out of the pores, but served to deliver a bracing massage. The soaping web, on the other hand, was specially woven out of hair or plant fibers.
There are three towels for drying, one to go around the hair like a turban, one around the shoulders, and one around the waist.
There might be a bowl for henna, which the woman would be fill on arriving at the hamam. Aside from the color it lends, henna is considered to strengthen the hair. Henna is an old tradition for young girls before their marriage day; called as Henna night.
A very small container, made of tinned copper, was used to mush up an eyebrow darkener known as ‘rastik’, especially popular with those of fair and auburn hair.
There is another box, this one for ‘surme’, for the lids.
Attar of rose in a bottle, the bottle in turn kept in a wooden case, and inevitably found in the hamam bundle: No other perfume was considered proper for the newly washed body.
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