Talk:Hammam

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Hammam article.
Please sign and date your posts using four tildes (`~~~~`). New discussion topics go at the bottom of the page; click here to start a new topic. New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Frequently asked questions. This is not a forum for general discussion about the article's subject.	Talk page guidelines Be polite Assume good faith No personal attacks Don't bite the newcomers!

	This article is part of WikiProject Turkey, which aims to improve Wikipedia's coverage of Turkey-related topics. If you would like to participate, you can edit this article, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of objectives.
B	This article has been rated as B-Class on the project's quality scale.
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

1 Merger?

[edit] Merger?

Obviously the term Turkish bath can also apply to the oriental hamman, not the other way around, so the suggested merger direction is absurd! Does anyone know whether there are other traditions as well? Fastifex 13:27, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ====

The suggested merger is not useful because it merges different types of bath, as anyone who had used them would soon realise.

The Victorian Turkish Bath (= the Irish Roman bath) uses a series of increasingly hot rooms to sweat in air which is as dry as possible—go to Harrogate or Baden-Baden; the Islamic hammam is steamy and humid because the dry air is affected by the water used to bathe onself within the hot areas—go to Paris or anywhere where there is an Islamic community; the Russian bath or banya is a hot steam bath (often erroneously called a Turkish bath in the UK)—go to Russia or New York or, if you like plastic boxes, to a health club or hotel; the sauna is initially heated with dry air, to which small quantities of water are added from time to time to give a rush of hot air—go to Scandinavia or your health club or hotel.

The Victorian Turkish Bath and the Islamic Hammam are both derived from the Roman bath which goes back at least as far as Sparta.

For a more detailed discussion, see: http://www.victorianturkishbath.org/_3TOPICS/AtoZTopics/Technology/WetOrDry/WetOrDryEng.htm

[edit] ===============

Certainly the turkish bath and the hammam are one-and-the-same, at least throughout the Middle East. If the Victorian Turkish Bath is different, perhaps the present entry for "Turkish Bath" should be changed to "Victorian Turkish Bath".