Baths

I

Introduction

Baths, in architectural terms, buildings or rooms built specifically to provide facilities for communal or private washing and bathing. Bathing has been part of religious practice as ritual purification since early times. It is still important among Hindus and Muslims. The mikvah in Orthodox Judaism and baptism in Christianity are derived from ritual bathing. Bathing has also been considered important to health and comfort in some societies, notably those of the ancient Greeks and Romans and those of the West in modern times. Bathing may also have a social function, as in ancient times and as in modern-day Turkey, Iran, and Japan.

II

Ancient World

Bathing facilities dating from before 2000 bc are known from excavations of the city of Mohenjo-Daro in Pakistan. They have also been discovered at the royal palace at Knossos, in Crete, built between 1700 and 1400 bc, and in the Egyptian royal city of Tell el-Amarna, built in about 1350 bc. Paintings on ancient Greek vases show primitive shower arrangements, and Homer mentions tub bathing in the Iliad. Greek public baths were initially adjuncts to gymnasiums and were supplied only with cold water, but by the late 5th century bc they were separate structures run by the city, offering steam baths, hot, temperate, and cold baths and serving as a social centre for men or women. In Greek times, as in later Roman times, bathing usually also involved exercising, oiling the body, taking several baths of different temperatures, scraping the body of oil and sweat, and further anointing.

In ancient Rome, wealthy citizens would have had bathing facilities in their own homes, but there were also public baths; balnea were built and run by individuals for their own profit, and thermae, great baths built for the public by wealthy citizens, or by emperors, were either free or extremely cheap. The earliest known Roman baths are the Stabian baths at Pompeii, built in the 2nd century bc. Their arrangement is similar to the public baths found in other parts of the Roman Empire. Around a central courtyard, used for exercise, were laid out the apodyterium, or dressing room; the calidarium, or hot room, containing the alveus, or hot bath, and the laconicum, or steam bath; the tepidarium, or warm bath; and the frigidarium, or cold bath. These facilities were duplicated, on a smaller scale, for women. Floors were of mosaic tile, and floors and walls were heated by a hypocaust that circulated hot air through flues. Water was brought great distances by aqueducts. Between the 1st and 4th centuries ad, five imperial public baths (thermae) were built in Rome. Extensive ruins of three of these, the baths of Titus, Caracalla, and Diocletian, remain. In addition to the facilities found in Pompeii, these baths had shops, lecture halls, elaborate gymnasiums, gardens, and libraries. The city of Bath, in England, takes its name from the hot springs that the Romans converted into public baths. The bathing complex, still in use in the 21st century, comprises some of the best-preserved Roman remains in Britain.

Roman public baths were the centre of social life and a place for relaxation and recreation and visits would involve other activities, such as sport, exercise, or massage. There was a variety of objects that people would have taken with them, for example bottles of oil with which to be massaged, strigils (metal scrapers with which to remove oil after exercise), and soda, which served the function of soap. All apart from the poorest bathers would be accompanied by a number of slaves, to guard their clothes, massage them, and generally assist during their visit. Where separate facilities for them did not exist, particular times of day were reserved for women. During the last years of the Roman Empire, mixed bathing became the norm, and baths became settings for debauchery.

III

Medieval Europe and the East

The Early Christian Church, which considered physical cleanliness less important than spiritual purity, did not encourage private bathing, and it censured the licentiousness associated with Roman public baths. Bathing, especially in chilly northern Europe, came to be regarded as unhealthy and was frowned upon as an indulgence. Medieval builders paid more attention to fortifications and fireplaces than to water supply and drains. Although many late medieval cities had public baths, which also offered refreshment and entertainment to mixed company, such establishments were generally considered extremely disreputable. Bathing, for most of the population, was rare.

In north-eastern Europe, where Roman influence had not penetrated and the Christian Church took longer to become established, the Finns and Russians developed steam baths, derived from the steam baths of the ancient Scythian nomads on the Eurasian steppe. Finnish and Russian families built small wooden rooms or huts (Finnish, sauna) with benches around the walls. Water thrown on heated rocks created dense clouds of steam, in which the bathers sweated. They were then soaped, rubbed, flogged with softened birch twigs, and washed with tepid water. Finally they were splashed with cold water or plunged into snow or an icy stream. (See also Sauna)

In southern Europe and the Middle East, Islamic societies in which bathing was valued for religious, hygienic, and social reasons, sophisticated bathing facilities developed. The rich built splendid baths in their homes. Public baths were built in every town that had a mosque. Some large cities, such as Córdoba in Spain, had hundreds of baths, which men and women visited separately. In Constantinople and other Turkish cities, public baths served the same functions as Roman baths. They consisted of a large, domed, steam-heated central room surrounded by smaller rooms, the whole decorated with marble or mosaics. One could spend the day at the baths, enjoying refreshments and meeting friends. Turkish baths, like Roman baths, eventually degenerated into resorts of idleness and indulgence.

The Japanese also set great store by social bathing. Almost every house had a bath, in the form of an indoor wooden tub or a garden pool. Washing was done first in private, but a whole family enjoyed soaking in a hot tub. In addition many large public baths were at mineral or hot springs where many families bathed together. These customs continue in modern Japan.

IV

The Modern West

In the 16th century the puritanical spirit of the Reformation further discouraged bathing in Europe and similarly affected the American colonies. In the 18th and 19th centuries when a more secular outlook prevailed, the wealthy adopted the habit of visiting natural spas or hot springs for their health. It became fashionable to spend a few weeks each year taking the waters at such resorts as Bath in England, Vichy in France, Baden-Baden in Germany, or Saratoga Springs, New York, in the United States. Luxury hotels, fine shops, concert halls, and casinos grew up around the baths.

In 19th-century cities, however, dirt and disease increased as a result of the Industrial Revolution. Cities were begrimed by factory smoke and overcrowded with people seeking factory work. After an outbreak of cholera in London, a demand gradually arose for improved bathing facilities. By the late 19th century, private houses for the upper classes were being built with separate bathrooms supplied with running water and equipped with wooden, copper, or iron bath tubs. Municipal and private corporations built public baths for the general populace.

During the 20th century, cleanliness was increasingly recognized as desirable, and as a result of mass production, the vast majority of dwellings came to have their own indoor baths. By the end of the century new housing was provided with one or more bathrooms, equipped with hot and cold running water and fitted with baths of gleaming porcelain enamel, and showers had also become commonplace.