Excavations reveal remains of a Turkish bath in Aegean province

Hurrriyet Daily News ^ | Sunday, June 22, 2013 | Anatolia News Agency

[SunkenCiv]

The remains of a 1,500-year-old thermal Turkish bath (hamam) have been uncovered during an excavation of a thermal tourism center in the Aegean province of Denizli. According to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Turkey’s Housing Development Administration (TOKI) is continuing an urban transformation for the thermal tourism center in the Karahayıt province of Denizli. The excavations in the settlement area started two months ago.

There were two different constructions found in the same area. One is a Turkish bath with circular architecture and the other is a thermal structure.

Governor Abdülkadir Demir, who was investigating the area, said that the constructions for the thermal tourism center planned for the Karahayıt region were continuing. There is an urban transformation project run by TOKI in this context. There is also an excavation taking place in the area for the saving of the historical artifacts found in the area.

A natural jacuzzi

Demir said that they had found very important traces in the excavations and added, “We never assumed we could find such a structure.It is a natural Jacuzzi from 1500 years ago. This structure can be counted as the initial plan of the thermal center we are planning to build. There are canals coming from the upper side. The thermal sources of Pamukkale and Karahayıt combine in this little pool and are distributed from here. There are also marble covered baths which are not usually seen. We are trying to build the structure that was built 1500 years ago. Now there is a thermal health center construction in Karahayıt."

[SunkenCiv]

The remains of a Turkish bath dating back 1,500 years ago have been uncovered during the construction of a thermal tourism center in Denizli. AA photo

[SunkenCiv]

GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach	join list or digest view topics view or post blog bookmark post a topic subscribe
There were no Turks in Anatolia or the Aegean 1500 years ago, and furthermore, there are no "Turkish baths". To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.

[knarf]

What’s thermal tourism center ?

[Telepathic Intruder]

Thermal spas and springs, theraputic centers build over fault lines with high mineral content water. Some people swear that it cures ailments. They’re popular in France, of course, Turkey, a few other places. In some of these there are fish that actually eat the dead skin off the bathers. I read once about a spring in France where they found very low-level radiation in the water sometime in the early 1900’s, and this led to the belief that the radiation was theraputic. So someone got the bright idea to market mineral water containing radium and thorium. It led to a few unpleasent deaths before they discovered that radiation is bad for you.

[DCBryan1]

“Joey, have you ever been in a... in a Turkish prison?”

[wildbill]

Some time ago there was a documentary on a team of archeologists that discovered a Roman bath somewhere in Anatolia.

They built a copy of the a Roman bath complete with heated pool.

[AnalogReigns]

Considering that the Turks only came into Asia Minor (now “Turkey”) about 1000 years ago, and the Byzantine Roman empire controled things before that.... a 1500 year old bath is a ROMAN bath, NOT Turkish.

Besides that the whole concept of a “Turkish Bath” was simply stolen by the Turks from the Romans—since they happened to move in and take over.

[Verginius Rufus]

Yes, Asia Minor was part of the Roman Empire 1500 years ago, but there was trade on the Silk Route and the Turks wer living close to that route. So the Romans could have imported some Turks to build the baths for them. It may sound far-fetched, but according to the movie Thermae Romae, in the 2nd century A.D. some Japanese came to the Roman Empire to show them how to improve their baths.

Just kidding...I know that it is anachronistic to speak of Turkish baths 1500 years ago.

On the other hand, the term "Turks" is found in some early medieval sources for some other ethnic groups the Romans/Byzantines were in contact with, long before they came into contact with the people we would call "Turks." But those earlier "Turks" were not associated with building bath houses.

[SunkenCiv]

Yeah, that’s right, that’s why I put the same information in my ping post.