A Study on the Egyptian Public Bath Structures from Antiquity to Today: What Lessons Can We Learn From Them When Addressing Water Scarcity
I. Abstract:
Egypt has always been a country that constantly struggles with water availability from antiquity to today. This is due to its hot and arid location and its mostly desert environment and climate. In recent times, numerous academic studies have been explored throughout the disciplines on bathing structures, emphasising Roman and Islamic public baths. This essay mainly focuses on the studies done by Dr Fagan and Dr Sibley to analyse the physical and social aspects of these heritage structures in Egypt and examines what lessons can be learned from them to address water scarcity. The primary literature review focuses on the Egyptian Roman baths, their different methods of water collection and storage that evolved and adapted in accordance with distinct regional water characteristics, as well as the integration of social hierarchies that significantly contributed to community resilience. Next, the essay applies the ancient methods onto the current water problems in Egypt and investigated the Islamic hammams in Cairo, to highlight how water problems can be addressed through the distribution, accessibility and social factors of bathing structures. Lastly, the essay concludes that implementing and protecting bathing structures are only initial steps towards the battle against water scarcity; it requires more initiatives across all disciplines to tackle the problem on a vast scale.
Yuanchen
(Richie)
Zhang, Welsh School of Architecture, Bsc Y2 Sem 2, Cardiff University
Zhangy320@cardiff.ac.uk C2008595
II. Introduction:
This essay examines how historical baths in Egypt contributed to its water scarcity, emphasising the original Roman baths. Firstly, the paper highlights the public baths in ancient Roman Egypt, exploring the brief history of the beginning bathing culture and how their design granted water accessibility to their citizens. Secondly, the sense of community is investigated regarding scholars such as Dr Fagan and its connection with the Roman bathing structures that can create resilience towards water scarcity. Then, the essay examines the case study of the current water problems of Egypt and its water scarce capital Cairo, and how modern planners and architects can learn from historical baths to contribute to water scarcity today. Finally, the essay applies the literature reviewed materials onto Hammams in Cairo, arguing the effectiveness of providing water access to the citizens and building resilience within the community. The paper ends with an appeal towards heritage protection and investigation towards other means of contributing to water scarcity.
III. Literature Overview:
Roman baths in Egypt: what can we learn from them?
Bathing has been an important social event since antiquity. It was the Greeks that started an attempt to construct large steam bathing structures for community use, which cultivated the birth of thermalism (Gianfaldoni, 2017): springs were well known to the ancient Greeks for their medicinal powers, particularly in the treatment of skin and joint related illnesses, and it was not until the Roman era that it reached its pinnacle (Cilliers, 2006).
Between the period from the first century B.C. to the first century A.D., archaeological evidence suggested that large bathing structures went through substantial technological advancements, and a more dramatic rise in the bathing habit in almost all the Roman towns was being developed at that time, especially in Rome and Pompeii (Fagan, 2002). During that time, concrete became increasingly used as a material for building sophisticated structures, such as public baths; gigantic aqueducts were created only to provide water for bathing, such as Aqua Marcia in Rome (Muench, 2018) and the newly developed hypocaust system, which heated the water using wood burning cauldrons. As a result, baths became a significant recreation and socialising place for the Romans, who would have regularly used them once every two days.
Although constructed across the Empire, the essential architectural characteristics remain the same. Regardless of size, they all consist of 4 main rooms according to Historian Garrett Ryan (2021): a changing room named apodyterium, a room with cold water named frigidarium, a room with transitional warm water named tepidarium and a room with the hottest water named caldarium, with a boiler room is located underneath to heat the water.
Fig 1 (Top left): Aqua Marcia that transported water to baths (Mahajan, 2020)
Fig 2 (Top right): A typical Roman hypocaust system that heated the water (Yegül, 2015)
Fig 3 (Bottom left): Reconstruction of Baths of Caracalla, depicting how the space is used (McDavid, 2019)
This centralised system had been an incredibly effective infrastructure to grant freshwater access to its citizens' areas with natural water scarcity. For example, in Roman Egypt, where annual rainfall is only 8mm (World Weather & Climate Information, 2022) compared to 1376mm in the U.K., many attempts to build these large heated public baths or thermae could be seen throughout the country in various cities, resulting in utterly different water collection strategies unique to their city's climate and water context. Water wells were discovered adjacent to the cisterns of the Kon el Dikka bath complex to supply water to the baths in the comparatively wealthy city of Alexandria (Majcherek, 1995); The baths in Marina El Alamein had used a combination of water reservoirs to provide water, as well as using ceramic water pipes to carry water from the roof through a drain into the cisterns because the city had experienced relatively plenty of rainfall compared to the south due to its location on the northern tip of the Mediterranean sea (Fournet, 2017). For Karnak, a city located further south down the river Nile thus with minimum rainfall, had developed drainage systems that diverged the Nile water to supply its many baths (Redon, 2017)
Fig 4: Plan of the baths of Kom El Dikka, Egypt (Kordas, 2021)
Fig 5: Plan of Bath of Marina El Almein, Egypt (Czerner, 2015); Fig 6: Plan of Baths of Karnak, Egypt (Boraik, 2017)
Furthermore, their simple yet effective way of collecting water contributes to the issue of water scarcity in terms of accessibility. All of the Roman thermae shared a common principle: that the water was heated centrally and shared with the public in the exact location where it was heated. This makes it easy to manage, reduces the risk of water leakage and heat loss when transported into individual homes, and lowers the cost of fresh water in an already water sacred place because no additional water distribution infrastructure was required. A centralised bathing system can also help decrease water evaporation in hot and dry climates like central Egypt because a larger volume of water has a smaller surface area to volume ratio. Today, those who live in water scarce areas can benefit enormously from bathing culture, just as they did in ancient times (Ryan, 2021)
In addition, Dr Fagan (2002) believes that the public baths provided an ideal setting for community social interactions. The dismantling of social distinctions allowed for positive interactions between users, and the bathing structure itself has allowed enough room for privacy and intimacy, socialising, and education. The following section discusses how this strong sense of community formed within the walls of these bathing structures, which can help achieve resilience and contribute to water scarcity.
Sense of community:
Roman baths are communal, which is a somewhat alien concept to modernists, especially people from the West. People throughout history had been using baths, and it was until the popularisation of showers in the 1980s (Merlyn, 2019) that showering became more popular than bathing. According to Medical Daily, the idea that bathing can serve hygienic purposes and lead to better health did not arrive until
after the discovery of the Germ Theory by Ignaz Semmelweis in the late 19th century (Bushak, 2015) stating that germs caused many diseases. Therefore, for Romans, cleaning themselves was not the purpose of their daily trip to the baths, even though evidence suggests that oil flasks and strigils were used to scrape the body (Vroma.org, 2011), but is it more perhaps to do with thermalism, which is to help relax the muscles and stimulate the circulation. This act had resulted in better personal hygiene for Romans, and it was unintentional. It can be said that the primary drive for going to such baths for people in antiquity was for social purposes rather than actively for hygienic purposes. As Dr Adkins (2014) states: "The baths have long been recognised as social centres in the Roman world."
It is evident that all classes of people had bathed together (Yegül, 1996), including the emperors, elites, commoners and enslaved people. It is a perfect public facility where people could make connections across all classes, and that it is where social distinctions of the hierarchical nature of Roman society broke down. "Baths are social levellers", quotes G.G.Fagan. However, they were utilised by different classes for different political gestures. For emperors, they were instead a testbed for their imperial benevolence. In the famous Historia Augusta, it was said that emperor Titus used the baths "so as not to turn down any opportunity of courting popular favour." (Fagan, 2002). For the elites, they used the bathhouses as exhibition halls for statues and also places for conducting business (Watson, 1985), and for commoners or even possibly, slaves as clients and attendants (DeLaine, 1999). As a result, it can be claimed that Roman baths depict a typical hierarchical society with social inequality, yet also emphasise the community's vital unity.
This phenomenon of social inequality goes hand in hand with communal unity, which is very rare to witness nowadays. According to Antipode, there is a definite and increasing trend of social segregation in Cairo where the elites occupied the city and the poor are located to the south along the river Nile, especially after a decade of neoliberal policies (De Koning, 2009). The link between poverty and water scarcity is also evident in Cairo. The top 10% elite in terms of income in the city has their water flow to their houses, leaving the bottom 10% of farmers to suffer from water scarcity due to unequal distribution of water and cropping pattern etc. (De Koning, 2009. Public baths may provide a starting point that can bring the society together precisely as they have achieved in Roman antiquity, decreasing the social segregation within the city. They can also provide the poor with a stable freshwater resource, and the wastewater can also be recycled and used for irrigation.
The sense of community generated within the public baths is likely to encourage people to use them more, influencing a cultural shift towards using baths. A recent study in 2015 suggests that, in a place of trauma, there are significant positive correlations between social cohesion and resilience (Townshend, 2015). In the ancient public baths, people could discuss the problems they were facing freely. They would come up with solutions together, sharing thoughts and emotions and discussing important events. This ultimately improves social cohesion due to boundaryless communication being established within the community, which can be manipulated nowadays to contribute to stronger resilience within the community that targets problems in water scarcity. This is especially important in countries like Egypt, where average freshwater availability per capita is predicted to decrease from 1893m3 in 1959 to 536m3 by 2025 (Abdin, 2009), which is borderline close to the "absolute water scarcity" definition by the U.N., 500m3 (WHO, 2005). Therefore, strong community cohesion and resilience are vital when facing societal challenges imposed by climate change and water scarcity.
Egypt's water problem
Water supplies (from wells, rivers, lakes, and other sources) are currently under severe stress in North Africa, owing to periodic droughts brought on by climate change and increased urbanisation (Botai, 2021). One of the main factors contributing to Egypt's water scarcity is that the Nile River is hugely relied on for its water supply. NARSS suggests that 90% of all water usage in Egypt comes from the Nile (Abou El Magd, 2014), which implies a complete dependency on its stable water flow and water quality. In addition, the agriculture sector takes up 85% of Egypt's water usage (Abdin, 20009), and the method of exposed irrigation from the Nile implies water evaporation and loss due to the hot climate.
Many factors also contribute to Egypt's water problem. The GERD dam in Ethiopia is predicted to threaten the water supply of the Nile hugely, and its disruption of the Nile's water flow is criticised as it "will cause a water war." (Michaelson, 2020). Many types of heavy metal, algae, and cyanobacteria are also found in the Nile due to industrialisation in the Delta region and urbanisation (El Sheekh, 2016). This leads to little or no safe freshwater for domestic use and shortages, as 40% of Cairo only have a water supply as short as two hours a day (Williams, 2008). The Nile Delta is also described as one of the world's three extreme vulnerable hotspots for sea level rise (Nicholls, 2007). Constant flooding in coastal cities like Alexandria has threatened the city's building foundations due to saltwater intrusion (Magdy, 2019). Overall, Egypt's access to water is rapidly dwindling, and it is critical to seek solutions that will provide a reliable water supply for communal and domestic usage.
Ancient bath houses provide examples of storing and managing water in Egypt. If revived, it can help contribute to the country's water crisis by increasing community resilience and allowing individuals access. In coastal areas where high annual rainfall occurs and constantly experiences flooding, saltwater intrusion is one of the main concerns that contaminate the freshwater system and destroys water distribution infrastructures, lessons can be learnt from the public baths of Marina el Alamein which used pipes and channels to collect rainwater and groundwater which granted access to people who are unable to access water in their homes due to damaged infrastructures. In areas largely dependent on the Nile, lessons can be learnt from the baths of Karnak, which collected water from the Nile using pipes. Together with modern technology, water can be treated and purified collectively to have a safe water source for residential usage. Furthermore, for areas that constantly experience water cuts, lessons can be learned from the ancient techniques used in the bath of Kon el Dikka, such as drilling for water wells or divergent channels from the Nile to fill the baths to grant stable water access to the citizens.
Cairo was renowned for its well designed public baths or Hammams, which became an essential facility for Islam. The following section investigates how water access is achieved in Cairo's hammams and how public bath design methods of the past are shaping the design of the future to tackle water scarcity.
Hammams in Cairo
The first hammam in Egypt came into being in Cairo around the Arab Conquest of Egypt around A.D. 610, and The period following the rise of Islam witnessed rapid development in the architecture of baths and the change from Roman to Islamic bathing habits (Sibley, 2012). Like Roman baths, Hammams have preserved their underlying principles such as a series of hot and cold rooms, furnaces to heat the water and the important social aspect, but traditions such as large volume of cold and hot pools have disappeared. Instead, washing by pouring water over the body has come into practice. They are now evolved to be adapted with praying and rituals associated with traditions and needs for Islam. People are expected to clean themselves before prayers in Mosques according to the teachings in Quran, before and after the activities such as sexual intercourse, birth menstruation and significant festival.
Fig. 7: Location of Hammams in Cairo at the end of the 19th century (1880) (Fadli and Sibley, 2008)
The locations of Hammams in Cairo have been of significant merit to the citizens. Firstly, they are distributed across the city and ensure easy accessibility. Historian Nelly Hanna describes that the patterns of hammams resemble remarkable similarities to those of the city's water fountains (Hanna, 1983), which were situated along the major roads in town to be easily reached within walking distance. To provide water for those structures, wells were equipped in the majority of the houses, but additional water is still needed to be brought by people or animals in saqqas (Sibley and Fadli, 2008). Water containers from the Nile not far away through the main roads to supply the increased demands of water in hot summer months, which had been crucial for Cairo's citizens due to water scarcity. Like its predecessor, Roman baths in Egypt, water is stored, treated, and heated centrally, preventing evaporation and contamination and disinfecting and purifying for hygienic use. This provided a fantastic water source, as water distribution infrastructure would have been very hard to install in such a populated area.
Secondly, hammams locations are often adjacent to the important facilities in the city, such as mosques, schools and market places, and people that attend those facilities can also attend hammams. This can be seen in the example of Hammam of Inal, which is adjacent to a palace, school and supermarket. This strategic location within the community inherited the social aspect of the Roman baths, which allowed all social classes from different backgrounds and people who worked in various sectors to gather and socialise. Therefore, it is conceivably an extension of other communities, contributing to society's spirit. This vital social cohesion is believed to have tremendous resilience in water scarcity trauma and will eventually contribute to its solutions.
For Muslims in Cairo, Hammams are the place that brings together Islam, home, childhood memories and family. Dr Sibley describes them as "spaces of hope" (Sibley, 2009), as they have been firmly ingrained into the culture of Islam and its crucial positive heritage profiles. However, from the late 19th century onwards, the hammams have been in constant decline in numbers due to cultural change. A study in 2008 by Dr Sibley and Dr Fadli has revealed that the number of hammams operating in Cairo declined from 77 in the 1800s all the way down to 7 in 2008 (Sibley and Fadli, 2008). Recently, a unanimous effort across the academic realm has been trying to preserve and renovate these heritage structures, resulting in a cultural shift and snowball effect towards using these facilities once again and encouraging others to use similar approaches to tackle water scarcity problems.
Fig 8: Satellite image demonstrating the Hammam of Inal in Cairo and its immediate urban surroundings (Google Maps)
Fig 9: Plan of Hammam of Inal in Cairo (Sibley, 2012)
Fig 10 and 11: The current decaying state of hammams in Cairo Hammam Bashtak on the left , Hammam al Mu’ayyad on the right (Sibley and Fadli, 2009, 2012)
Water scarcity is a multi dimension problem. Although historical bathing architectures can contribute towards a solution, it is not enough to rely on them solely to combat the problem. Prevention of water scarcity is perhaps of paramount importance than the reaction. For Egypt, it requires all different parties, such as anti corruption measurements of the government, new irrigation methods and maintenance over existing infrastructures etc., to tackle it comprehensively. Bathing structures helps to mitigate the water scarcity on cultural issues that water scarcity has; however, there are much more to do with different aspects.
V. Conclusion:
Historic public bathhouses such as Roman baths and Islamic Hammams not only are great cultural heritages that desperately need to be protected, they can also be great additions to areas that are experiencing water scarcity. As outlined in the essay, design methods in the past are handy tools to tackle current problems. Public baths can contribute to the physical aspects of the water scarcity problem, such as collecting, treating, and storing water and also contributing to the social part, which is to reinforce the community spirit. The sense of community generated within the baths can be created by design traits like strategic location placement of the baths. Traditional usages and cultural shifts towards preservation have made the area more resilient towards water scarcity. Especially in the case of Cairo, a revival of the traditional bathing hammams are vital in terms of heritage and water problems, and new installations of these structures, especially in the rural areas is also crucial.
This essay outlines a surface level of the more profound question: to what extent can historical heritage structures contribute to environmental problems nowadays, specifically in the case of water scarcity? While this essay gave an uncomprehensive attempt due to scope, future studies should investigate other methods that transform traditional baths into a more sustainable and effective one using new technologies, and how other heritage structures and practices can contribute to water scarcity and community resilience. Yet, it requires communication and cooperation of all other different parties and disciplines to be truly effective in tackling water scarcity on a local, national and global scale.
VI.
Bibliography
Abdin A.E., Gaafar I. Rational water use in Egypt. In : El Moujabber M. (ed.), Mandi L. (ed.), TrisorioLiuzzi G. (ed.), Martín I. (ed.), Rabi A. (ed.), Rodríguez R. (ed.). Technological perspectives for rational use of water resources in the Mediterranean region. Bari : CIHEAM, 2009. p. 11 27 (Options Méditerranéennes : Série A. Séminaires Méditerranéens; n. 88)
Abou El Magd, I., El Kafrawy, S. and Farag, I., 2014. Detecting oil spill contamination using airborne hyperspectral data in the River Nile, Egypt. Open Journal of Marine Science, 2014.
Adkins, L. and Adkins, R.A., 2014. Handbook to life in ancient Rome. Infobase publishing. Botai, J.O., Botai, C.M., Ncongwane, K.P., Mpandeli, S., Nhamo, L., Masinde, M., Adeola, A.M., Mengistu, M.G., Tazvinga, H., Murambadoro, M.D. and Lottering, S., 2021. A review of the water energy food nexus research in Africa. Sustainability, 13(4), p.1762.
Bushak, L., 2015. A Brief History of Bathing; The Importance of Hygiene, from Ancient Rome’s Sophisticated Showers to the Modern Day. Medical Daily.
Cilliers, L. and Retief, F.P., 2006. Medical practice in Graeco roman antiquity. Curationis, 29(2), pp.34 40
Daniel Williams, New York Times: Pipes but no water: A need grows in Egypt, 30 Sept. 2008
De Koning, A., 2009. Gender, public space and social segregation in Cairo: of taxi drivers, prostitutes and professional women. Antipode, 41(3), pp.533 556.
DeLaine, J. and Johnston, D.E. eds., 1999. Roman baths and bathing: proceedings of the first International Conference on Roman Baths, held at Bath, England, 20 Mar 4 Apr 1992.
El Sheekh, M.M., 2016. Impact of water quality on ecosystems of the Nile River. In The Nile River (pp. 357 385). Springer, Cham.
Fadli, F. and Sibley, M., 2008. The Historic hammāms of Cairo: Safeguarding a vanishing heritage. Journal of architectural conservation, 14(3), pp.59 80.
Fadli, F. and Sibley, M., 2008. The Historic hammāms of Cairo: Safeguarding a vanishing heritage. Journal of architectural conservation, 14(3), pp.59 80.
Fagan, G.G., 2002. Bathing in public in the Roman world. University of Michigan Press.
Fournet, T. and Redon, B., 2017. Romano Byzantine baths of Egypt, the birth and spread of a little known regional model.
Gianfaldoni, S., Tchernev, G., Wollina, U., Roccia, M.G., Fioranelli, M., Gianfaldoni, R. and Lotti, T., 2017. History of the baths and thermal medicine. Open Access Macedonian Journal of Medical Sciences, 5(4), p.566.
Hanna, N., An Urban History of Bulaq in the Mamluk and Ottoman periods, Institut Francais D'archeologie Orientale (IFAO), Cairo (1983).
MAGDY, S., 2019. Rising seas threaten Egypt's fabled port city of Alexandria. [online] ABC News. Available at: <https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/rising seas threaten egypts fabled port city alexandria 65286853> [Accessed 8 February 2022].
Majcherek, G., 1995. Notes on Alexandrian habitat. Roman and Byzantine houses from Kom el Dikka. Topoi. Orient Occident, 5(1), pp.133 150.
Merlyn Showering. 2019. A brief history of the shower. [online] Available at: <https://merlynshowering.com/news/a brief history of the shower/#:~:text=But%20showers%20haven't%20always,showers%20that%20we%20use%20today.> [Accessed 8 February 2022].
Michaelson, R., 2020. It’ll cause a water war’: divisions run deep as filling of Nile dam nears. The Guardian, 23.
Muench, Steve. "Water and the Development of Ancient Rome." We're Never Far from Where We Were, 23 Jan. 2018, https://brewminate.com/water and the development of ancient rome/.
Nicholls, R.J., Wong, P.P., Burkett, V., Codignotto, J., Hay, J., McLean, R., Ragoonaden, S., Woodroffe, C.D., Abuodha, P.A.O., Arblaster, J. and Brown, B., 2007. Coastal systems and low lying areas.
Redon, B., 2017. Collective Baths in Egypt 2. IFAO, Cairo. Ryan, G., 2021. Naked statues, fat gladiators, and war elephants. Prometheus Books. Sibley, M. and Jackson, I., 2012. The architecture of Islamic public baths of North Africa and the Middle East: an analysis of their internal spatial configurations. arq: Architectural Research Quarterly, 16(2), pp.155 170.
Sibley. M. and Fadli. F, 2009. 6. The Utopian Space of the Islamic Bathhouse or Hammam Muslim spaces of hope: Geographies of possibility in Britain and the West
The Digest, book 50, 27.1 Watson, A., 1985. The Digest of Justinian, Volume 4. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Townshend, I., Awosoga, O., Kulig, J. and Fan, H., 2015. Social cohesion and resilience across communities that have experienced a disaster. Natural Hazards, 76(2), pp.913 938.
Vroma.org. 2011. Roman Baths. [online] Available at: <http://vroma.org/vromans/bmcmanus/baths.html> [Accessed 8 February 2022].
World Health Organization, 2005. International decade for action Water For Life, 2005 2015. Weekly Epidemiological Record= Relevé épidémiologique hebdomadaire, 80(22), pp.195 200.
World Weather & Climate Information. 2022. Climate and average weather in Egypt. [online] Available at: <https://weather and climate.com/average monthly Rainfall Temperature Sunshine in Egypt> [Accessed 8 February 2022].
Yegül, F.K., 1996. The thermo mineral complex at Baiae and De Balneis Puteolanis. The Art Bulletin, 78(1), pp.137 161.
