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In Ottoman times the Turkish bath bowl was used to scoop water out of the basin in the Hamam or Turkish bath.Susan probably used the hamam bowl that is now in her possession and the heirloom of this study.Susan first visit to Turkish bath(hamam)took place in Istanbul in 1977 prior to her marriage to a Turk. Her soon-to-be mother-in-law took her to thae local hamam. Susan probably used the hamam bowl that is now in her possession and the heirloom of this study. Susan had understood the visit to the hamam was to be a purely social undertaking to introduce her to a cultural institution that few Turks, Susan's mother-in-law included, rarely used.
Afterwards Susan learnt from her prospective husband that the real purpose of the expedition impair her future grandchildren, as a farmer's daughter that had grawn up witnessing the implementation of careful stock-breeding programs, Susan was somewhat taken aback to feel like she was part of one her self. Nevertheless, Susan was intrigued to learn that along with many other 'rites of passage' rituals, assessing and choosing a suitable bride for her son had, in Ottoman times, been a commonplace activity in the hamam. While a thoroughly modern woman in most regards, in tis matter, Susan's mother-in-law was clearly of the Ottoman old school.
In Ottoman times, things required for the bath were often made or given to a woman as part of her trousseau. Beautiful-embroidered towels, which represented years of preparation and skill, would demonstrate the breeding and the social status of the woman. In the past particular styles of embroidery were used for bath towels. Often they were embroidered with rose designs symbolizing the family. Sometimes spacial motifs designed to protect one from the jinn (evil or mischievous spirits) were used. A kese, the rough mitt made from silk or cloth used to exfoliate the skin, was sometimes also included in the trousseau. Traditionally, it was also customary among wealthy families to present the bride with a silver bath bowl(hamam tast), used to scoop water out of the basin (kurna). Bath bowls were also made from other metals: copper, brass, bronze or gold-plated bronze. Hamam bowls, like towels, were made in different sizes and decorated with different designs that often told where the bowl had been made. Men used a larger bowl than woman, and children a smaller one. Many bowls had a raised center like a navel. A special type of navel led bowl used by woman, like the one Susan have, had a jointed fish mounted in the center; the fish was a symbol of sacred fertility. A game sometimes played by unmarried girls in the hamam with this kind of bowl was to fill it with water and watch to see who the fish pointed at when it stopped swimming around; that girl would be the next to marry.
Susan was not given her bath bowl as wedding present. She married Barbaros in London, not in Turkey so She did not have a traditional bridal bath before the wedding, as once was part of the week-long events before a wedding. The custom of a bridal bath at a hamam is not often practiced in Turkey any more-most homes have a bathrooms so going to a communal bathhouse for this ritual is not considered necessary or desirable, particularly by modern secular families. For special treatments, brides all beauticians to their home or go to the beauty parlour.
Susan can not recollect when the hamam bowl came into her possession exactly, but she suspect it was when she returned to Istanbul for six months during the winter of 1979-1980, after Aysha her first daughter was born. At the time there was a severe fuel shortage in Turkey. Their foreign debt was enormous and they could not afford to buy in the quantities of fuel-oil needed from their neighbours to the south. As a consequence families moved in with each other to pool their resources to stay warm, wash, cook etc. They had a car with English number plates and as foreigners holding Australian passports they could jump queues for petrol at the gas stations. They also had a ground floor garden flat so they put in a fireplace(of sorts) for burning wood to keep warm replacing the then defunct central oil heating system. For washing, they went to the hamam in Uskudar, a very old suburb on the Asian side of Istanbul which was where Barbaros' grandmother, the original owner of the hamam bowl had lived. Grandmother Eykurt had her family name engraved into the bowl saying 'Eykurt ailesi' (family). Susan never knew her. She had long since died and the old wooden Ottoman home where she lived in Uskudar had long been demolised, but she is buried in the famous and huge cemetery in Uskudar. Susan discovered after visiting her grave that she had been born in Amaysa, a very historic town in Anatolia on your way to the Black Sea.
Susan do not know how Barbaros' mother Umran came to have the hamam bowl, if she indeed was the one who gave it to her. Umran was the youngest in her family. She had two older sisters and brother. All are now dead. Aliye, the last of them, died last year, a few weeks after Susan had visited her in Istanbul. It may have been her that gave Susan the hamam bowl as she recall going to the hamam with her daughter Zuhall on several occasions, but it most probably came from Umran. It was a good bequest. Not that Umran ever knew of its importance for Susan, her foreign ex-daughter-in-law, or that she would become an authority on the world this object was created for the Turkish bath.
-Teresa Battesti, 'Traditions', in living in Istanbul, Paris, Flammarion, 1994, p.207.
-Sabiha Tansug, 'Hamam Taslari', Antika: The Turkish Journal of Collectable Art, no.5,(August 1985), p.13.
-Tuilay Tascioglu, p.180.
-Susan Aykut.
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