عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
Culture

Istanbul’s Historic Baths Keep Hammam Tradition Alive

Built 500 years ago, Istanbul's Zeyrek Cinili Hammam recently reopened after a restoration process that took 13 years. (AFP)
Built 500 years ago, Istanbul's Zeyrek Cinili Hammam recently reopened after a restoration process that took 13 years. (AFP)
TT
TT

Istanbul’s Historic Baths Keep Hammam Tradition Alive

Built 500 years ago, Istanbul's Zeyrek Cinili Hammam recently reopened after a restoration process that took 13 years. (AFP)
Built 500 years ago, Istanbul's Zeyrek Cinili Hammam recently reopened after a restoration process that took 13 years. (AFP)

For centuries, hammams were central to Ottoman society, and while they fell out of use in Türkiye with the advent of running water, many are being restored to revive an ancient ritual bathing tradition.

Often featured in older Turkish films, hammam scenes are highly entertaining, with women not only bathing but enjoying these historical bathhouses as a place to socialize, eat, and even dance.

Last year, the 500-year-old Zeyrek Cinili Hammam -- built during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent by the celebrated Ottoman architect Sinan -- reopened to the public after a painstaking 13-year restoration.

Alongside a functioning hammam, it also houses a museum explaining its history and the Ottoman ritual of bathing.

"The restoration somehow turned into an archaeological dig" that gave insight into how the hammam once looked, museum manager Beril Gur Tanyeli told AFP.

"Around 3,000 pieces of missing tiles were found which helped solve the puzzle of why this hammam was called Cinili" -- Turkish for "covered with tiles".

The beautiful Iznik tiles that once lined its walls were exclusively produced for the hammam, with no other bathhouse having such a rich interior, museum officials say.

Although most were damaged by fires or earthquakes, or sold off to European antique dealers in the 19th century, some are still visible.

The restoration also exposed several Byzantine cisterns beneath the hammam.

"Sinan the Architect is believed to have built the hammam on top of these cisterns to use them as a foundation and as a source of water," Tanyeli said.

Istanbul's celebrated royal architect Sinan designed the Zeyrek Cinili Hammam and built it over several Byzantine cisterns as a water source. (AFP)

- From cleansing to celebration -

In ancient Rome, bathing culture was very important and it was "traditional for traders to wash before entering the city, especially in baths at the (city) entrance," archaeologist Gurol Tali told AFP.

During the Ottoman empire, bathing culture had its golden age, with the ritual symbolizing both bodily cleanliness and purity of soul.

In Islam, a Muslim must wash before praying, in an act known as ablution.

Hammams were also a place for celebrating births and weddings.

"Baths were used not only for cleansing the body but for socializing, relaxing, healing and even celebrating important life events," with special rites for brides, soldiers and those who had undergone circumcision, Tali said.

Since households at the time did not have running water, hammams were an essential part of life until the 19th century, with census figures from 1638 showing there were 14,536 public and private baths in Istanbul, the museum says.

And that tradition has survived until today.

"You come here to get clean and leave handsome," said Zafer Akgul, who was visiting one of the city's hammams in the city with his son, telling AFP he visited often, particularly during religious feasts or for a wedding.

"We don't want this tradition to die."

Alongside the bathhouse, the Zeyrek Cinili Hammam also houses a museum showcasing pieces like these intricately decorated wooden clogs. (AFP)

- 'Passing on cultural heritage' -

That is where Istanbul's ancient hammams can serve a bigger purpose, Tali said.

"Restoring historical baths in Istanbul and putting them to use may be the most effective way to transfer cultural heritage to future generations," he said.

Another nearby bath house from the same era, the Beyazid II Hammam, underwent years of restoration and reopened as a museum in 2015.

One of the largest hammams in the city at the time, some historians believe it was where a notorious male bathing attendant, or "tellak", called Halil plotted an uprising that in 1730 overthrew Sultan Ahmed III.

For Manolya Gokgoz, who does publicity for Cemberlitas Hammam, another 16th-century bathhouse built by the royal architect Sinan, the connection is more personal: her grandmother worked there as a "natir" -- a woman's bathing attendant.

"When I was two or three years old, I would go to the baths in the morning, wash and play by myself until the evening without getting bored," she told AFP.

The museum at the Zeyrek Cinili Hammam celebrates the ancient bathing ritual. (AFP)

For Gokgoz, the tradition lives on -- although mostly among tourists, which for her is a shame.

"In the past, we used to go to the hammam with our mothers and grandmothers. Now 70 percent of our customers are foreign tourists and 30 percent locals," she said.

These days, the hammam experience -- which lets bathers relax in hot, warm or cool pools alongside extras like massages or peeling -- is quite expensive, with the basic service costing around $100.

Celebrities, both Turkish and international, often visit Cemberlitas, with the last being Spanish actor Pedro Alonso -- the character Berlin in the Netflix hit "Money Heist" -- who visited in September.

"Hammam is not a luxury, but a need," Gokgoz said.

"Yes, it's not like in the past because we have hot water at our fingertips, but we need to keep this tradition alive."

Most Viewed

 
 
Culture

Japanese Poet Shuntaro Tanikawa, Master of Modern Free Verse, Dies at 92

Shuntaro Tanikawa, a Japanese poet and translator, speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in Tokyo, on May 25, 2022. (AP)
Shuntaro Tanikawa, a Japanese poet and translator, speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in Tokyo, on May 25, 2022. (AP)
TT
TT

Japanese Poet Shuntaro Tanikawa, Master of Modern Free Verse, Dies at 92

Shuntaro Tanikawa, a Japanese poet and translator, speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in Tokyo, on May 25, 2022. (AP)
Shuntaro Tanikawa, a Japanese poet and translator, speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in Tokyo, on May 25, 2022. (AP)

Shuntaro Tanikawa, who pioneered modern Japanese poetry, poignant but conversational in its divergence from haiku and other traditions, has died. He was 92.

Tanikawa, who translated the "Peanuts" comic strip and penned the lyrics for the theme song of the animation series "Astro Boy," died Nov. 13, his son Kensaku Tanikawa said Tuesday. He said his father died at a Tokyo hospital due to old age.

Shuntaro Tanikawa stunned the literary world with his 1952 debut "Two Billion Light Years of Solitude," a bold look at the cosmic in daily life, sensual, vivid but simple in its use of everyday language. Written before Gabriel García Márquez’ "One Hundred Years of Solitude," it became a bestseller.

Tanikawa’s "Kotoba Asobi Uta," or "Word Play Songs," is a rhythmical experiment in juxtaposing words that sound similar, such as "kappa," a mythical animal and "rappa," a horn, that makes for a joyful singsong compilation, filled with alliterations and onomatopoeia.

"For me, the Japanese language is the ground. Like a plant, I place my roots, drink in the nutrients of the Japanese language, sprouting leaves, flowers and bearing fruit," he said in a 2022 interview with The Associated Press at his Tokyo home.

Tanikawa explored the poetic, not only in the repetitive music of the spoken word but also the magic hidden in little things.

One of his works is titled, "I wanted to talk to you in the kitchen in the middle of the night."

"In the past, there was something about it being a job, being commissioned. Now, I can write as I want," he said.

In every work Tanikawa tackled, including the script for Kon Ichikawa’s "Tokyo Olympiad," a documentary film of the 1964 Tokyo Games, the respectful love for the beauty of the Japanese language resonates.

He also translated Mother Goose, Maurice Sendak and Leo Lionni. Tanikawa has in turn been widely translated, including English, Chinese and various European languages.

Some of his works were made into picture books for children, and they are often featured in Japanese school textbooks. He also incorporated Japanese words derived from foreign origins into his poems like Coca-Cola.

In his prose poem with that title, in which a boy is opening a Coke can, he wrote: "If, for instance, he saw the infinite universe that started or ended at the tip of his can, he was totally unaware of it. One might be able to opine that he named every bit of the unknown about to swallow him with all the vocabulary he could muster, which included his future vocabulary that was yet dormant in his subconscious."

In his debut poem that catapulted him to stardom, he is more sparse:

"Because the universe goes on expanding, we are all uneasy. With the chill of two billion light-years of solitude, I suddenly sneezed," is the way the poem ends, as translated by William I. Elliott and Kazuo Kawamura.

When asked about it, Tanikawa acknowledged it felt as though someone else had written it, but noted he still thought it was a good poem.

"Tanikawa’s poetry reflects a metaphysical and quasi-religious attitude toward experience. In simple, spare language, he sketches profound ideas and emotional truths," according to the Poetry Foundation, a US literary organization.

Tanikawa was born in 1931, a son of philosopher Tetsuzo Tanikawa, and began writing poetry in his teens, circulating with the famous poets of that era, like Makoto Ooka and Shuji Terayama.

He said he used to think poems descended like an inspiration from the heavens. But, as he grew older, he felt the poems welling up from the ground.

In person, Tanikawa was friendly and unassuming, often reading in public with other poets. He never seemed to take himself too seriously but used to confess his one regret in life was never finishing his education, having dropped out amid stardom at a young age.

His relative isolation from the bleakly serious scholarly poetry scene of postwar Japan likely helped him take his free-verse approach that went on to innovate and define Japanese contemporary poetics.

Tanikawa said he wasn’t afraid of death, implying he perhaps meant to write a poem about that experience, too.

"I am more curious about where I will go when I die. It’s a different world, right? Of course, I don’t want pain. I don’t want to die after major surgery or anything. I just want to die, all of a sudden," he said.

He is survived by his son, musician Kensaku Tanikawa and daughter Shino and several grandchildren. Funeral services were held privately with family and friends. A farewell event in his honor is being planned, Kensaku Tanikawa said.

"As they did with all of you, Shuntaro’s poems stunned and moved me, making me chuckle or shed a tear. Wasn’t it all so fun?" he said. "His poems are with you forever."