Land of Kashyapa - Page #6 - The Hammam

The Hammam

The Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) reached its zenith around 2000 BC. All along the Indus River there were settlements and it may come as a surprise to many that nearly 4000 years ago we had some of the best water and drain management systems in place as evidenced in the archaeological sites. I have read that the IVC had some public baths. But their home plumbing was far advanced compared to what civilizations that came much later had.
Perhaps Greece and Rome - who called them "thermae" (thermos=hot) borrowed the idea of water supply and sanitation from the IVC. When Islam rose, it adapted the Public baths as Hammams. In Arabic the word also means (heated?) bath. Islam places great importance to ritual ablution and is called Ghusl "full ablution" and Wudu "partial ablution".
I read that "hammams were not in fact necessary for religious purposes in early Islam..the scholars viewed hammams as unnecessary for full-body ablutions (ghusl) and questioned whether public bathing spaces could be sufficiently clean to achieve proper purification". But the Hammams became popular anyway. "The spread of Muslim rule in the Indian subcontinent also introduced hammams to this region, with many examples surviving in Mughal architecture (16th–19th centuries)."
The picture you see is a Hammam which sits below the fort in Hari-Parbat, a hill that overlooks the city of Srinagar. The central column is timber, says Sri Madhusudhanan Kalaichelvan.
I did not see any inlets or outlets to this Hammam. I also did not see chambers beneath the structure which would have been useful for heating the bath and the floors. It would be a wonderful thing to refurbish this place and recreate an authentic Hammam. I did not see any well or water source nearby and wondered how they brought in the waters to the Hammam.
The spectacular thing about the Hammam is not even the place itself, but it is about the roof. Zoom in and see the circular brick dome architecture. First they had to make the brick arches that are connected to the central pillar and then they had to make circular domes between the arches with only bricks held in place by lime. The good work of the artisans has stood the test of time - 400 years in fact.
About the name - Tata sons when they created the Hamam soap - had thought well 😀!
Sriram(Hari)

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