The Turkish
bath is a relatively recent addition
to the Bodrum Castle and there is
no evidence of any bathing facilities
attributable to the era when the Knights
of St. John were masters of the fortress.
Later records are very rare and include
little detail, but Evliya Celebi,
a Turkish traveler who visited Bodrum
in 1671, specifically notes in his
account that there was no bath (hamam)
within the castle walls which enclosed
the whole tiny, impoverished population
of Bodrum. Although the exact date
of its construction cannot be firmly
established, some purposeful historical
sleuthing points strongly to the end
of the 19th century as the time when
the Bodrum Castle acquired its first
Turkish bath. The original facility,
which fell into disuse and disrepair
following the First World War, was
restored to reflect the features of
a noteworthy Turkish 'hamam' and was
opened to the public in 1991 as an
exhibit of a particularly Turkish
cultural tradition.
 History
notes that the first Crusaders did
not hold bathing in high esteem Their
hosts were riddled with diseases,
primarily due to dismal personal hygiene.
While the Byzantines continued the
Roman bath tradition, though on a
much smaller scale, and the Turks
under the Muslim strictures of cleanliness
developed the Turkish bath, western
Europeans were very slow to accept
that bathing the body is beneficial,
so it is not surprising that no remains
of a bath dating to the times of the
Knights have been found in the Bodrum
Castle.
It is believed that the restored
Turkish bath exhibited today was originally
built shortly after the castle became
a prison in 1893, and its building
was probably directed by Hoca Arif
Efendi, a scholar of note who was
in Bodrum Castle in 1896-97, held
under fortress arrest together with
Muneccim Hoca Muin, one of the founders
of the Istanbul observatory. In his
history of Bodrum, Avram Galanti Bodrumlu
credits Hoca Arif Efendi with the
installation of iron pipes to replace
the settlement's open-channel water
supply system, so it would seem appropriate
that a person of his rank would feel
the need of a proper Turkish bath
and be in a position to have one built.
The restored bath exhibit illustrates
the typical characteristics of a Turkish
hamam and includes objects associated
with the Turkish bathing tradition.
One of its principal aspects is washing
in water poured over the body and
then drained away immediately after
use, a hygienic method that avoids
having people other than the bather
coming in contact with water once
used. Another mark of the hamam is
its hot room - the Latin caldarium
of Roman baths - where heated air
circulates through channels in the
floor and in the walls while the surrounding
steam and hot water poured over the
body open the pores. This preparatory
stage permits deep cleansing which
consists of an invigorating scrub-down
massage with a special rough cloth
known as kese wielded by a professional
bath attendant called 'tellak'. The
dressing room of the Turkish hamam,
the apoditerium of the Romans, is
not just a changing room but a place
of relaxation and cooling off after
the ablutions in the hot room. It
is also a place of socializing, especially
on women's days in public Turkish
baths (or in separate women's hamams)
where the ladies stay on to eat, slake
their thirst and engage in neighborly
gossip.
This exhibit is the only functioning
hamam to have been restored by the
Ministry of Culture. The restoration
was made in 1991 with the technical
support of the Ministry of Culture,
the General Directorate of Monuments
and Museums, the Center for the Administration
of Circulating Capital Funds of the
Ministry of Culture, and the Directorate
for Documentation of Monuments in
Izmir. It was opened to the public
with the assistance of the Bodrum
Lions Club.
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