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Ğ LU HAMAMI
    About half a kilometre along, we come on our left to Hilaliahmer Caddesi. If we follow this for about 100 metres, we see on our left the entrance to one of the most famous and beautiful public baths in Istanbul. This is the Ca ğ alo ğ lu Hamam ı , built in 1741 by Sultan Mahmut I. In Ottoman times the revenues from this bath were used to pay for the upkeep of the library which Sultan Mahmut built in Haghia Sophia, an illustration of the interdependence of these old pious foundations. There are well over a hundred Ottoman hamams in Istanbul, which tells us something of the important part which they played in the life of the city. Since only the very wealthiest Ottoman homes were equipped with private baths, the vast majority of Stamboullus for centuries used the hamams of the city to cleanse and purify themselves. For many of the poorer people of modern Istanbul the hamam is still the only place where they can bathe.

     
    Turkish hamams are the direct descendants of the baths of ancient Rome and are built to the same general plan. Ordinarily, a hamam has three distinct sections. The first is the camekân, the Roman apoditarium, which is used as a reception and dressing room, and where one recovers and relaxes after the bath. Next comes the so ğ ukluk, or tepidarium, a chamber of intermediate temperature which serves as an ante-room to the bath, keeping the cold air out on one side and the hot air in on the other. Finally there is the hararet, or steam-room, anciently called the calidarium. In Turkish baths the first of these areas, the camekân, is the most monumental. It is typically a vast square room covered by a dome on pendentives or conches, with an elaborate fountain in the centre; around the walls is a raised platform where the bathers undress and leave their clothes. The so ğ ukluk is almost always a mere passageway, which usually contains the lavatories. In Ca ğ alo ğ lu, as in most hamams, the most elaborate chamber is the hararet. Here there is an open cruciform area, with a central dome supported by a circlet of columns and with domed side-chambers in the arms of the cross. In the centre there is a large marble platform, the göbekta ş ı , or belly-stone, which is heated from the furnace room below. The patrons lie on the belly-stone to sweat and be massaged before bathing at one of the wall-fountains in the side-chambers. The light in the hararet is dim and shimmering, diffusing down through the steam from the constellation of little glass windows in the dome. Lying on the hot belly-stone, under the glittering dome, and lazily observing the mists of vapour condensing into pearls of moisture on the marble columns, one has the voluptuous feeling of being in an undersea palace, in which everyone is his own sultan.
    Ca ğ alo ğ lu, like many of the larger hamams in Istanbul, is a double bath, with separate establishments for men and women. In the smaller hamams there is but a single bath and the two sexes are assigned different days for their use. In the days of old Stamboul, when Muslim women were more sequestered than they are now, the hamam was the one place where they could meet and exchange news and gossip. Even in modern Istanbul the weekly visit to the hamam is often the high point of feminine social life among the lower classes. And we are told by our lady friends that the women of Stamboul still sing and dance for one another in the hararet – another old Osmanl ı custom.

    Leaving the Ca ğ alo ğ lu Hamam ı , presumably cleansed and purified, we continue on along Hilaliahmer Caddesi for another 100 metres and then turn left on Alay Kö ş kü Caddesi. About 100 metres along we come on our left to a small mosque with an elegant sebil at the street corner. This mosque and its külliye were built in 1745 by Be ş ir A ğ a, Chief of the Black Eunuchs in the reign of Sultan Mahmut I. In addition to the mosque and sebil, the külliye of Be ş ir A ğ a includes a library, a medrese