Turkey's 500-year-old hammam unveils Istanbul's Ottoman secrets

ISTANBUL — The 13-year restoration of a historical bathhouse in Istanbul reveals a multilayered history of tile smuggling, war captives reimagining their lost battle through graffiti and the rise and decline of the public baths in the Ottoman Empire.

Koza Gureli Yazgan is the project director and a board member of the Marmara Group, a hospitality company that bought the 16th-century site called the Zeyrek Cinili Hammam. “What started as a three-year plan to renovate and reopen an ancient hammam has turned into a 13-year odyssey of uncovering historical facts one after the other,” she told Al-Monitor.

The group was unaware of the history behind the multi-domed bath located in Istanbul's ancient Zeyrek area, which is under UNESCO protection. Though the new owners knew the building had survived fires and earthquakes, they had no idea what lay in store as they stripped the cement-based, moldy plaster, which had, ironically, protected the pinkish-red layer of mortar with its beautiful 18th and 19th century paintings as well as fragments of older and broken tile.

“With the discovery of the tile fragments, we understood why it was called ‘Cinili Hammam,’ or bath with tiles, though there were no tiles visible then,” Yazgan told Al-Monitor. “Once we started, it is almost as if the hammam compelled us to search for its untold tales, making it impossible to rush through restoration.”