TEHRAN – A team of restorers has discovered ruins of a centuries-old bathhouse while they were digging the surface for a restoration project.

The ruins were found when restorers caved trenches around a historical structure in the village of Sangan in Khorasan Razavi province, a local tourism official said. 

The architectural structure, domes, and the type of bricks used in this property indicate that its usage pertains to a bathhouse and relates to the late Safavid period, the official added.

Bathhouses or ‘hammams’ in Iran were not only places for bathing and cleaning up. They had a social concept for people who gathered at these places weekly.

It was a place where people talked with each other about their daily lives and shared humor and news. There are still bathhouses in Iranian cities, but they do not have their social function anymore, since most people have bathrooms in their homes due to the modern lifestyle.

Some cities had separate bathhouses for men and women. They were usually built next to each other. However, there were some bathhouses which were used by men and women at different times of the day.

There were also male and female public bathhouses; at daybreak, a longhorn (booq-e javaz) was blown to announce that the bath was ready. Men came to the baths from daybreak till the afternoon. Women could use the bathhouses from then to sunset. In some cases, five days were allocated to men and two days to women.

AFM