The ancient pleasure of bathing can be either public or private, consisting of either immersion in water or exposure to steam or hot air. The Muslims invented the steam bath or hammam, also known as a Moorish or Turkish bath. The hammam is a combination of the vapor bath and Roman thermal baths. It was brought into Spain with the Moorish invasion in the seventh century. After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the Ottoman Turks introduced it to the Balkans and Hungary. There are two types of vapor baths, the dry heat associated with Russia, the Scandinavian countries and the humid heat which came to Spain.
In Arabic, "hamma" means to heat. The steamy rooms of the hammam offer a place of retreat, secretive and even poetic in character. The sun shines through the colored glass of the honeycomb of little round and star-shaped apertures in the domes. Streams of light hang in the floating steam and create an enchanting atmosphere.
A traditional hammam consists of a suite of marble-clad rooms opening one into another. In the center is the hot room which acts as the focal point surrounded by smaller rooms. In the middle of the hot room, there is a raised marble slab where one may have a massage. The dry heat is provided by pipes of hot air lying under the floor. From there one would proceed to the steam room where hot water drips down from the ceiling and saturates the atmosphere with water vapor.
After the traditional scrubs, one goes for a rinse at the fountain, using a tinned copper cup to splash oneself with refreshing cold water. Then one returns to the room where one has left one's clothes, to relax and drink a soothing glass of mint tea.
In the 12th century, Abd Al-Latif Al-Baghdadi wrote that Egyptian baths were "the most beautiful in the East, the most convenient and the best laid out." In the 15th century, the Arab historian Al-Maqrizi counted 47 baths in Cairo. Edward William Lane identified between 60 and 70 baths in his book "Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians" published in 1830. Twenty years later, the French writer Theophile Gautier wrote how he felt after he went to a hammam in Cairo:
"I stayed there an hour roughly in a sleepy reverie, taking coffee and frothy lemonade, and when I left, I felt so light, so fit, so supple, so well recovered from my fatigue."
In 1969, Andre Raymond revealed the existence of only 20 baths and in a 2000 interview, the owner of the Malatili hammam, estimated that only eight baths were still open.
"The local hammam is in the process of disappearing. The ruins are scattered among the alleyways of Cairo, silent witnesses to the degradation of the buildings and the abandonment of their social functions," writes May Telmissany.
With the reign of Muhammad Ali, began the decline of the hammam. As venues for relaxation and leisure multiplied with the birth of clubs, theaters and public gardens, wealthy residents of Cairo stopped coming to the public baths and only the poor continued to be faithful to them. The city's last hammams in operation are in a derelict condition and need to be restored.
The Last Hammams of Cairo is a fitting tribute to a disappearing bathhouse culture. The beautiful text written by May Telmissany is perfectly complemented by the atmospheric photographs taken by Pascal Meunier. On one hand, these quasi-surreal images trigger "a poetic and spiritual frisson" and on the other hand, they highlight the creative power of the baths' austere architecture which lifts one's spirits and promotes relaxation.
May Telmissany's impassioned call to save the hammams of Cairo is utterly desperate. It is indeed sad and incomprehensible that in order to have an idea of the past splendors of Cairo's bathhouses, one has to go to Istanbul where the hammams have been superbly restored. One can only hope that this book will provide the final wake up call.
