Çemberlitaş Hamam

Overview

Step off the tram at Çemberlitaş, and two things rise above the traffic of Divanyolu: the scorched Column of Constantine and, beside it, a cluster of white domes over the shops. See also Divanyolu, the old main street. Under those domes, people have been sweating on warm marble for more than four centuries. This is the Çemberlitaş Hamam (a Turkish bath), the bath of a powerful queen mother.

Nurbanu Sultan’s Bath

In 1584, Nurbanu Sultan, the mother of Sultan Murad III and head of the imperial harem, built the bath as a charitable endowment. It served the people of the city, and at the same time it earned money. It did so well, that its income helped pay for her great mosque complex in Üsküdar, the Atik Valide. Our Sinan mosques tour visits that complex.

Sinan or his team?

People often credit the bath to Mimar Sinan. However, its name is missing from the lists of his works, so its architect is still an open question, although it went up in his years as chief architect.

Inside the Çemberlitaş Hamam

The hot room

First, you pass from the dressing hall through a warm room into the sıcaklık, the hot room. It is square, yet twelve columns and the deep bathing niches around its walls make it look twelve-sided. In the middle lies the göbektaşı, the warm marble navel stone, under a dome.

The old heating

Behind the bath stands the furnace. Much like in Roman baths, hot gases flow under the floor and up through the walls, so the whole building stays warm.

The Inscription of the Çemberlitaş Hamam

For years, the inscription over the door could not be fully read. When it was cleaned in the last repair, it showed the year 992 in the Islamic calendar, or 1584, in a chronogram by the poet Sâî Mustafa Çelebi, so the building is also called the Valide Hamam. Nurbanu built it to fund her charities, above all the Atik Valide complex at Toptaşı in Üsküdar, and she had baths in Üsküdar and Langa as well. Later, the Köprülü family, whose mansion stood next door, endowed a library across the street and built the large Vezir Han behind the bath. In the hot room, Persian and Turkish inscriptions over the doors of the corner cubicles are still waiting to be dated.

Four Centuries of Change

Over time, the bath survived fires, in 1660 and 1782, and earthquakes in the 18th century. Then, in 1868, the city widened Divanyolu after a great fire, and part of the building was cut away. This forced the women’s section to close, and steps were built down to the entrances, because the street had risen around them. Today, almost all of its guests are travelers in search of a historic bath.

The tellaks

In Ottoman times, a busy bath was a small world of its own. Attendants called tellaks scrubbed and washed the bathers, often living in the bath itself, while a hamam anası, the “mother of the bath”, ran the women’s side.

How to Visit the Çemberlitaş Hamam

The bath stands on Divanyolu, next to the Çemberlitaş tram stop, and our Istanbul rainy day tour ends here. We book your package at the Çemberlitaş Hamam and fit it into your day.

Before you go, read our guide to the Turkish bath in Istanbul, or book our Istanbul hammam experience. Next door, see the Column of Constantine, then walk to the Nuruosmaniye Mosque and the Grand Bazaar. For other historic baths, see the Hürrem Sultan Hamam and the Cağaloğlu Hamam.