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60th session - Decisions

Firuz-bey hammam, the site and remains of the historic building

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Status of monument -> National monument

Published in the “Official Gazette of BiH” no. 100/08.

            Pursuant to Article V para. 4 Annex 8 of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Article 39 para. 1 of the Rules of Procedure of the Commission to Preserve National Monuments, at a session held from 28 March to 1 April 2008 the Commission adopted a

 

D E C I S I O N

 

I

 

The site and remains of the historic building of the Firuz-bey hammam in Sarajevo is hereby designated as a National Monument of Bosnia and Herzegovina (hereinafter: the National Monument).

The National Monument is located on a site designated as cadastral plot nos. 485 and 476 (new survey), corresponding to c.p.nos 12 and 28 (old survey), cadastral municipality Sarajevo mahala XXX, Land Register entry nos. XXX/25 and XXX/24, c.m. Sarajevo, Municipality Stari Grad, Sarajevo, Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The provisions relating to protection measures set forth by the Law on the Implementation of the Decisions of the Commission to Preserve National Monuments, established pursuant to Annex 8 of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Official Gazette of the Federation of BiH nos. 2/02, 27/02, 6/04 and 51/07) shall apply to the National Monument.

 

II

 

The Government of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (hereinafter: the Government of the Federation) shall be responsible for providing the legal, scientific, technical, administrative and financial measures necessary for the protection, conservation and presentation of the National Monument.

The Commission to Preserve National Monuments (hereinafter: the Commission) shall determine the technical requirements and secure the funds for preparing and setting up signboards with basic details of the monument and the Decision to proclaim the property a National Monument.

 

III

 

To ensure the on-going protection of the National Monument on the area defined in Clause 1 para. 2 of this Decision, the following protection measures are hereby stipulated:

-          prior to the execution of works of any kind, a detailed survey of the remains of the hammam shall be carried out;

-          systematic archaeological investigations shall be carried out in such a way that the excavations shall follow the foundations of the walls and shall ensure that all the substructures of the hammam are examined;

-          the removal of the single-storey 20th century building to the west of the remains of the hammam is permitted, and shall be carried out with care by manual labour;

-          all movable archaeological material shall be catalogued, conserved and presented;

-          on completion of the archaeological works, a simple structure of the minimum necessary to ensure the protection and full presentation of the remains of the hammam may be introduced, subject to ensuring that no part of the remains of the hammam be removed, whether temporarily or permanently, during or after the introduction of the said structure;

-          all interventions shall be reversible, and all remains clearly and properly presented and accentuated by the use of new materials;

-          the highest points of the newly-introduced structure shall be no higher than the height of the best-preserved wall of the hammam;

-          the site of the monument shall be open and accessible to the public, and may be used for cultural and educational purposes.

 

A report on the completed investigations and any finds shall be presented to the Commission to enable any necessary amendments to this Decision to be made in line with the Commission's Rules of Procedure.

 

IV

 

All movable artefacts found during the archaeological investigations shall be housed in the nearest museum meeting the personnel, material and technical conditions for the processing, conservation, presentation and safe-keeping of the archaeological material.

The removal of the movable heritage items referred to in para. 1 of this Article (hereinafter: the movable heritage) from Bosnia and Herzegovina is prohibited.

By way of exception to the provisions of paragraph 1 of this Clause, the temporary removal from Bosnia and Herzegovina of the movable heritage for the purposes of display or conservation shall be permitted if it is established that conservation works cannot be carried out in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Permission for temporary removal under the conditions stipulated in the preceding paragraph shall be issued by the Commission to Preserve National Monuments, if it is determined beyond doubt that it will not jeopardize the movable heritage in any way. 

In granting permission for the temporary removal of the movable heritage, the Commission shall stipulate all the conditions under which the removal from Bosnia and Herzegovina may take place, the date by which the items shall be returned to the country, and the responsibility of individual authorities and institutions for ensuring that these conditions are met, and shall notify the Government of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the relevant security service, the customs authority of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the general public accordingly.

           

V

 

All executive and area development planning acts not in accordance with the provisions of this Decision are hereby revoked.

 

VI

 

Everyone, and in particular the competent authorities of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Canton, and urban and municipal authorities, shall refrain from any action that might damage the National Monument or jeopardize the preservation thereof.

 

VII

 

The Government of the Federation, the Federal Ministry responsible for regional planning, the Federation heritage protection authority, and the Municipal Authorities in charge of urban planning and land registry affairs, shall be notified of this Decision in order to carry out the measures stipulated in Articles II to VI of this Decision, and the Authorized Municipal Court shall be notified for the purposes of registration in the Land Register.

 

VIII

 

The elucidation and accompanying documentation form an integral part of this Decision, which may be viewed by interested parties on the premises or by accessing the website of the Commission (http://www.aneks8komisija.com.ba) 

 

IX

 

Pursuant to Art. V para 4 Annex 8 of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, decisions of the Commission are final.

 

X

 

This Decision shall enter into force on the date of its adoption and shall be published in the Official Gazette of BiH.

 

This Decision has been adopted by the following members of the Commission: Zeynep Ahunbay, Amra Hadžimuhamedović, Dubravko Lovrenović, Ljiljana Ševo and Tina Wik.

 

No: 02-2-137/2008-14

29 March 2008

Sarajevo

 

Chair of the Commission

Amra Hadžimuhamedović

 

E l u c i d a t i o n

 

I – INTRODUCTION

Pursuant to Article 2, paragraph 1 of the Law on the Implementation of the Decisions of the Commission to Preserve National Monuments, established pursuant to Annex 8 of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, a “National Monument” is an item of public property proclaimed by the Commission to Preserve National Monuments to be a National Monument pursuant to Articles V and VI of Annex 8 of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina  and property entered on the Provisional List of National Monuments of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Official Gazette of  BiH no. 33/02) until the Commission reaches a final decision on its status, as to which there is no time limit and regardless of whether a petition for the property in question has been submitted or not.

The historic building of the Firuz-bey hammam in Sarajevo lies within the Urban townscape of Sarajevo, which is on the Provisional List of National Monuments of the Commission to Preserve National Monuments, numbered as 546.

Pursuant to the provisions of the law, the Commission proceeded to carry out the procedure for reaching a final decision to designate the Property as a National Monument, pursuant to Article V para. 4 of Annex 8 and Article 35 of the Rules of Procedure of the Commission to Preserve National Monuments.

 

II – PROCEDURE PRIOR TO DECISION

In the procedure preceding the adoption of a final decision to proclaim the property a national monument, the following documentation was inspected:

-          Documentation on the location and the current owner and user of the property;

-          Data on the current condition and use of the property, including a description and photographs, data of war damage, data on restoration or other works on the property, etc;

-          Historical, architectural and other documentary material on the property, as set out in the bibliography forming part of this Decision.

 

The findings based on the review of the above documentation and the condition of the property are as follows:

 

1. Details of the property

Location

The historic building of the Firuz-bey hammam in Sarajevo is in the immediate vicinity of Baščaršija square.

The west end of this historic building faces Prota Baković street, and the south-western part connects with Ćulhan street.

To the north of the hammam is Mula Mustafa Bašeskija street, and to the south is a pedestrian street, Sarači. These streets link the Firuz-bey hammam area and the whole of Stari Grad (Old City) with the central urban area to the west.

The National Monument is located on a site designated as cadastral plot nos. 485 and 476 (new survey), corresponding to c.p.nos 12 and 28 (old survey), cadastral municipality Sarajevo mahala XXX, Land Register entry nos. XXX/25 and XXX/24, c.m. Sarajevo, Municipality Stari Grad, Sarajevo, Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Historical information

The site on which the remains of the former Firuz-beyov hammam are to be found is in Baščaršija, in an area where there was considerable building activity between 1502 and 1565, when this unique historic building was also erected.(1)  

The Firuz-bey hammam(2) was built between 1505 and 1512.  Its founder, Feriz-beg, was the sanjakbey (provincial governor)(3) of Bosnia, who built it for the use of his madrasa. Work probably began on the hammam in mid 1509, given that on 11 May 1509 the Grand Council of Dubrovnik acceded to Feriz-beg's request and sent to Sarajevo two masons and four magistroscogner (builders' mates) charged with making a start on the building works for this facility.

The Firuz-bey hammam is referred to in Čekrekčija's 1526 deed of endowment, and another surviving document records the rent paid to Firuz-bey's vakuf (pious endowment) for the hammam. This was 6,600 akča, considerably higher than the rent for the other hammams in use at that time. The reason for the higher rent was not that the baths were particularly large or well-equipped, but that they were in a prime location in the very heart of the Čaršija.(4)  

The madrasa for whose benefit the revenue from this hammam was intended was destroyed in the fire of 1697, and never rebuilt. The madrasa was Firuz-bey's only legacy, and it is not know how or for what purpose the revenue from the hammam and the surrounding shops was spent.

Historical information attests to the fact that the hammam was in operation in the early 19th century, but in 1810 the management of Firuz-bey's vakuf was forced to close it down because the dome was in such poor condition that there was a risk it would collapse. At that time the vakuf did not have the money to repair it, and the building was left to fall into dilapidation(5). It remained unused for forty years, during which time it was completed neglected, resulting in serious damage.

Finally, on 8 April 1849, the property was sold to Fadil pasha Šerifović, a man of great influence on public life in Sarajevo, and indeed throughout Bosnia, at that time. With the knowledge of the authorities, the muteveli (manager) of the Firuz-bey vakuf sold the vakuf property, which by definition is inalienable property.(6)  

Over the next half century or more the property remained in very poor condition(7). It was finally almost entirely demolished just before World War I. (8)  

In the mid 20th century, after World War II, the Firuz-bey hammam was still further degraded. A single-storey property was built on the remains of the hammam, housing the business premises of Instalater company.

In 1955 this property underwent a change of use to the Treskavica catering establishment with an open-air café. The property has not been in use since 1995.

The eastern, unbuilt-up part of the historic complex, where the archaeological remains of the hammam could still be seen, was also turned into a catering establishment in the 1980s, as an open-air café with a gallery, which remained in use until 2007.

In 2007 the Sarajevo Tobacco Factory became the sole owner of the entire site where the Firuz-bey hammam stood. The entire site was fenced off, barring access to the archaeological remains.

 

2. Description of the property

There were two kinds of hammam in Bosnia and Herzegovina(9): tek-hammam (single hammam) or čifte-hammam (double hammam). Single hammams were used by a single sex at a time, whereas čifte-hammams, the type to which the Firuz-bey hammam belongs, wasf for both. Double hammams are usually simple, symmetrical buildings, with separate premises for men and for women, each with its own separate entrance.

The Firuz-bey hammam was built on an unevenly-shaped site. The north side, facing the inner courtyard of the next-door building, is 32.50 m long, the east side facing Baščaršija square is 24.00 m long, the west side facing Prota Baković street is 15.00 m long, and the unevenly-shaped south side facing Ćulhan street is 28.00 m in length overall. The passageway to the south-east joining the historic building of the hammam with Ćulhan street is 5.00 m wide.

To the south, between Ćulhan street and the plot, is a single-storey shop, and to the south-west a two-storey commercial building.

The entrance to the hammam was from Baščaršija square(10), from the east, whereas the ćulhan was in Mali Sarači, later to be known as Ćulhan.(11) The Firuz-bey hammam had separate men's and women's premises(12), as did the Isa-bey hammam, as can be seen from the layout of the archaeological remains.(13)   

Most of the rooms were domed, but all that can now be seen are the remains of the walls of the building.(14)

The best-preserved part of the Firuz-bey hammam is the remains of a building of incomplete rectangular plan measuring 10.00 x 21.00 m, visible on the eastern part of the plot. The far south-eastern part of this building opens directly onto Ćulhan street. Here two separate rooms can be seen, divided by a high stone wall, 1.00 m thick and ranging in height from 6.00 m to the east to 8.11 m to the west.(15) Here there are the remains of part of a dome.

The south face of this wall contains three niches, 45 cm deep and at a height of 120 cm above ground level.

In the middle of the wall is an arched niche, 130 cm wide and 250 cm in height overall, framed by brickwork 30 cm wide. To the east and west are rectangular niches, 90 cm in width and 140 cm in height.

The remains of the south room are rectangular in plan, measuring 10.00 x 11.75 m, and those of the north room are roughly square in plan, measuring 10.00 x 9.25 m.

The remains of the south wall of the south room, which ranges in height from 30 cm to 100 m, contain an opening 130 cm in width, leading from this open area out onto Ćulhan street.

The remains of the east wall consist of a stepped stone structure 1.00 m in width and ranging in height from 100 cm to the south to 450 cm to the north, where there are the remains of a rectangular niche like the one in the cross wall. The continuation of the east wall of the north open area is of the same width, and no more than 80 cm in height. There is an opening 2.80 m wide in the middle of this wall.

There is an opening 1.80 m wide in the south section of this wall, with the remains of a 90 cm wide cross wall to the north of the opening.

The west wall of the south room abuts onto the building erected in the mid 20th century.  It is 1.00 m wide, and about 7.50 m high at the north end. This wall is stepped down towards the south, and at the south end is an opening 2.00 m wide to the north of which are the remains of a cross wall 2.00 m in height and 90 cm in width. There are the remains of a wall of the same width to the east, at the same level, which probably originally formed the continuation of the masonry structure.

In the north section of this wall, in the corner by the cross wall separating the south room from the north, is an unevenly-shaped opening 70 cm wide and about 2.00 m high where the remains of a brickwork arch can be made out. Above this is a square chimney shaft in the wall, measuring 35 x 35 cm. The continuation of the west wall around the north open area is of the same width, and about 7.00 m high. On the south face of this wall is an unevenly-shaped opening 70 cm wide and 190 cm high above which is a chimney of the same shape ad side as in the south section.

The far north wall of the north room is 75 cm wide and 5.50 m high, but a metre lower at the east end. This wall contains two symmetrically arranged rectangular niches like those in the south face of the partition wall between the north and south rooms.

The north room is paved with yellow rectangular artificial stone blocks (clinker) manufactured in the 20th century, while the south room is paved with uneven flagstones.

On the west side of the plot is a single-storey building dating from the mid 20th century, L-shaped in plan. The larger, eastern section of the property, which abuts onto the western remains of the wall of the Firuz-bey hammam, measures 9.00 x 19.00 m, and the smaller north-western section measures 8.75 x4.75 m. This property surrounds a south-west-facing open area measuring 8.50 x 10.20 m, facing Prota Baković street, from which it is separated by a high wall and gateway.

Stone and tufa were the principal materials used to build hammams, and ample quantities of lime were also used. The walls were 70 to 155 cm thick, with the outer walls invariably thicker than the interior walls. Hammams had floors paved with large stone slabs, and were covered by tufa domes and barrel vaults clad with lead. Part of a hammam would always be dug into the ground, and it is sometimes possible to find the remains of floor mosaics.

The Firuz-bey hammam was supplied with water by its own separate water pipe(16). All water pipes supplying hammams, including Firuz-bey's, had a balance-bob at the source and another outside the hazna (water tank) where the pipe ended. The surplus water flowed into the šadrvan and into the public fountains in the street by the hammam. The water for the Firuz-bey hammam came from two springs to the north and east of the city, one in the village of Mrkovići, and the other at Sereznik. The water pipe ran through Budakovići and the Jahja pasha mahala. Somewhere in Budakovići the pipe branched off to the Firuz-bey madrasa(17), which was beside Hubjaraga's mosque in what is now Medrese mahala.(18)  

The water pipe was called the Sedrenički(19) or Firuz-bey water main, and the water ran from the source to the hammam through earthenware pipes and later, in places, through pinewood pipes or ćunkove. The pipeline was about 2 km in length overall.

The last public fountain supplied by this pipe ceased working in 1937, when the spring was incorporated into the city water main.(20)  

 

3. Legal status to date

The historic building of the Firuz-bey hammam is on the Provisional List of the Commission to Preserve National Monuments under serial no. 546 unmder the heading heading “Urban Townscape of Sarajevo.“

According to details received from the Institute for the Protection of the Cultural, Historical and Natural Heritage of Canton Sarajevo, the Firuz-bey hammam is on the List of recorded, previously protected and protected immovable monuments of the cultural and natural heritage of Canton Sarajevo under serial no. 7103001E-5.

     

4. Research and conservation and restoration works

            The Firuz-bey hammam has never been the subject of systematic research or of conservation and restoration works. It is now impossible to conduct a full study, since neither the original nor any other drawing of the property has survived, and there are not even any historical photographs or drawings.

The documentation on the appearance of the property consists of an incomplete description of the hammam.

For this reason the actual appearance of the hammam will probably remain a mystery for all time, and this is why, when the model of the Sarajevo Čaršija was being made(21), an empty space was left where the Firuz-bey hammam had once stood.

In 1810 the opportunity was missed to carry out badly needed repairs to the domes of the hammam, which was why the property soon fell into a state of dilapidation.

The change of ownership in 1849 made no difference. Fadil pasha Šerifović made no investment of money or effort to restore the hammam.

The building was left to the ravages of time, and part of the paving slabs were removed from the hammam by the Džindžafić brothers shortly before the start of the Austro-Hungarian period and used to pave the hajat in their house in Ulomljenica street, where they are still in place.

When the hammam was finally demolished, just before World War I, three valuable kurnas were removed. These are still in use as fountain troughs in houses in Sarajevo – one in the old Morić house (now S.Kamenica's house) in Stojan Protić street, another in the Kreševljaković house in Skender pasha čikma (side-street), and the third in M. Komašin's house in Džina street.

The archaeological site suffered further damage in the mid 20th century, when instead of steps being taken to protect and conserve the remains of the hammam, a building that clashes with the townscape ensemble of the Old City was erected. So far no study has been made of the impact of this single-storey building on the archaeological site, but there is no doubt that the foundations will have caused further damage to the site.

The 1972 regulatory plan for the repair, conservation, restoration and revitalization of the Sarajevo Čaršija provided for the restoration of the Firuz-bey hammam in its “historical form on the presently occupied site.” The same plan provided for the demolition of the property built in the mid 20th century on part of the remains of the hammam, which is of absolutely no townscape value.(22)  

In the mid 1980s, the stone remains of the šadrvan of the hammam were taken away to be stored in the warehouse of the Sedrenik building firm of Sarajevo.

In August 2007 the Museum of Sarajevo planned a Project to investigate the site of the Firuz-bey hammam(23). Should be used to ascertain whether the foundations of the hammam have survived and to determine the level of dereliction of the remains of the building.

 

5. Current condition of the property

The Firuz-bey hammam is now an archaeological site(24) on the eastern part of which are the remains of the property and on the western a derelict property built over the remains of the hammam.

Until 2007 anyone could visit the eastern part, since in summer it was used as an open-air café with gallery. The entire property has now been fenced off to prevent entry.

The southern part of the open eastern section currently contains a fenced off, covered area housing catering equipment, while along the remains of the wall are wooden benches that were obviously put there for the purposes of the catering establishment. There are also some hanging lanterns on the walls which lit the area when it was being used as a café with gallery.  The entire complex is neglected and derelict.

 

6. Specific risks

-          inappropriate building works in the second half of the 20th century on the archaeological site,

-          failure to take steps to maintain the property or carry out conservation and restoration works.

 

III – CONCLUSION

Applying the Criteria for the adoption of a decision on proclaiming an item of property a national monument (Official Gazette of BiH nos. 33/02 and 15/03), the Commission has enacted the Decision cited above.

The Decision was based on the following criteria:

A.         Time frame

B.         Historical value

C.         Artistic and aesthetic value

C.iv.      composition

D.         Clarity (documentary, scientific and educational value)

D.v.       evidence of a typical way of life at a specific period

E.         Symbolic value

E.v.       significance for the identity of a group of people

F.         Townscape/ Landscape value

F.ii.       meaning in the townscape

F.iii.      the building or group of buildings is part of a group or site

G.         Authenticity

G.v.      location and setting

 

The following documents form an integral part of this Decision:

-          Copy of cadastral plan

-          Land Register entry and proof of title

-          Photodocumentation

-          Drawings

 

Bibliography

During the procedure to designate the historic building of the Firoz-beg hammam in Sarajevo as a national monument of Bosnia and Herzegovina the following works were consulted: 

 

1939     Kreševljaković, Нamdija. Vodovodi i gradnje na vodi u starom Sarajevu (Water Mains and Structures on Water in old Sarajevo). Sarajevo: City Savings Mutual of Sarajevo, Islamic Joint-Stock Press, 1939

 

1952     Kreševljaković, Hamdija. Banje u Bosni i Hercegovini(1462-1916) (Public Baths in BiH 1462-1916). Sarajevo: Svjetlost, 1952

 

1975     Regulatory plan for the repair, conservation, restoration and revitalization of the Sarajevo Čaršija, Assembly of the City of Sarajevo, Sarajevo

 

1997     Kurto, Nedžad. Sarajevo 1492-1992. Sarajevo: Oko, 1997

 

2000     Sanković, V. Revitalizacija graditeljske baštine (Revitalization of the Built Heritage). Sarajevo: NNP Naša riječ doo, 2000

 


(1) Details from the Museum of  Sarajevo, August 2007

(2) The Firuz-beyov hammam also features as the Firusbeg or Ferizbeg hammam - H. Kreševljaković, Banje u Bosni i Hercegovini (1462-1916), Sarajevo: Svjetlost, 1952, 53

(3) Feriz-beg held the post of sanjakbey from 1505 to 1512. His vakufnama has not survived, apart from what Dr. Bašagić and Dr. Truhelka have written about it.  The exact year of Feriz-beg's death is not known, but it was certainly before 1526, since he is referred to in another vakufnama of that year as rahmetli (the late) (H. Kreševljaković, Banje u Bosni i Hercegovini (1462-1916), Sarajevo: Svjetlost, 1952, 54)

(4) History of the Firuz-bey hammam, Institute for the Protection of the Cultural, Historical and Natural Heritage of  Sarajevo Canton, 6 March 2007, 2

(5) Quite apart from the fact that hammams did not generate income proportionate to their capital investment, they often needed major or minore repairs. Major repairs to a hammam could disrupt or even bring to an end the operations of a small vakuf. No benefactor wanted this to happen, which is why hammams are found solely as properties of large vakufs founded by sanjakbeys, pashas, viziers and others of similar rank. H. Kreševljaković, Banje u Bosni i Hercegovini (1462-1916), Sarajevo: Svjetlost, 1952, 10

(6) It is clear from the contract of sale drawn up on 15 Jumada-th-Thaniyya 1265 (8 April 1849) that this was not a purchase, but the legalization of usurpation. The document does not even specify the sum paid for the purchase of the property. H. Kreševljaković, Banje u Bosni i Hercegovini (1462-1916), Sarajevo: Svjetlost, 1952, 54

(7) The main reason for the deterioration of the hammam was the negligence of the mutevelis and other vakuf officials at that time. Numerous hammams fell into disuse throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1697 and 1878 for that very reason. Of the 47 hammams in existence in the 1660s, a mere four were still in use in 1878, two in Sarajevo and two in Travnik. Another reason was the high costs of maintenance. In Sarajevo, the last to close, in 1916, was the Gazi Husrev-beg hammam; the Isa-beg hammam was demolished in 1888 and a western-style public baths was built to replace it. H. Kreševljaković, Banje u Bosni i Hercegovini (1462-1916), Sarajevo: Svjetlost, 1952, 10, 11

(8) History of the Firuz-bey hammama, Institute for the Protection of the Cultural, Historical and Natural Heritage of Sarajevo Canton, 6 March 2007, 2

(9) The principal elements of a hammam were stone and water, and the most important features to be built were a water storage facility and a boiler-room where the water and the premises themselves could be heated.

Every hammam, even the smallest, had the following premises:

1.             the šadrvan (apodyterium) which was used as a waiting area and cloakroom;

2.             the kapaluk (tepidarium) for resting after bathing;

3.             the halvat (caldarium) for bathing

4.             the hazna, or water tank (hypocaustum);

5.             the ćulhan (hypocaustum) or furnace-room, with the area in front of which from which the furnace was fuelled (praefurnium).

Every hammam also had an avlija (courtyard), which sometimes also included the hamamdžija' (baths superintendent) quarters.

In this part of the world, there were hammams where the kapaluk (tepidarium) led straight into the halvat, and others which had an antechamber known as the mejdan between the kapaluk and the halvat.

The šadrvan was the first area entered by a visitor to the baths. It acquired its name from the fountain or šadrvan  in the centre of the room.  In ground plan it was square, with a domed roof at the centre of which there was a window to let in the light. There were no other apertures in the walls other than the door beside which the baths superintendent or his deputy sat at a small desk, the čekmedže, collecting the entry fees.  There were kafazi or curtained-off loggia-like cubicles along the walls, with a gallery above. Visitors would undress in the kafazi and rest on the gallery after bathing.

Other fittings consisted of benches where visitors to the baths would sit and wait, and a dulaf (cupboard) where towels, soap and so on were kept. In some hammams the waiting room had no fountain or kafazi, but instead had minderluks (built-in benches) up to 2 m wide along the walls.

The mejdan was the antechamber to the halvat. It was invariably square in plan, and covered with a dome.  Halvats were the same in design, but smaller. The temperature in the mejdan was warmer than in the kapaluk but cooler than in the halvat.

In one corner of the mejdan was a small area partitioned off with wooden boards, known as the taršhana.  Here visitors would remove their pubic hair using a compound known as hrmza, which was heated with a little lime. The mejdan also had a podium where the bath attendants would massage visitors if they wished.

The mejdan led into the halvat, where there were podiums in two or three corners, 30-40 cm high and square in shape, where people sat or reclined while steaming. In effect, these were bathtubs. There was a kurna between each two podiums – a stone trough with a hemispherical hollow, with no hole to let the water out. There were two brass taps above each kurna, for hot and cold water. Depending on the shape of the halvat and position of the podiums, it could have a maximum of three podiums and two kurnas, since one corner was usually taken up by the door to the halvat.

There were one or two kurnas in the mejdan too. The halvat or mejdan of some hammams also had a Jewish mikva, a small pool for Jewish ritual bathing, which was the exception, since hammams did not have pools or bathtubs in the modern sense of the word. The halvat in some baths also had wall niches resembling dulafs or shallow open-fronted cupboard, but it is not known what they were used for.

In the šadrvan and halvat the floor sloped gently to one side to allow dirty water to run off, particularly from the halvat, towards the door and thence down a gutter cut into the floor slabs, through the mejdan and kapaluk into the privy.

All the rooms in the hammam except the šadrvan were built on tufa pillars set in the basement. The rooms of the hammam had wooden doors, all single-valved except the main door. The doors were 80-90 cm wide and up to 180 cm high. Above the entrance door, a heavy nail was hammered into the wall from which a wooden block (tomruk) hung on a rope; on entering, the door needed to be pushed hard, and when it closed the tomruk gave off a loud sound.

The lights in the vaults were mainly star-shaped and set in rows. They were closed off with rounded, markedly protuberance glass panes.

The hazna (water tank) was behind the halvat. Here the water was heated and distributed through the baths via ducts in the walls, while cold water was distributed direct from the water main through ducts also in the walls.  There was a copper cauldron in the middle of the hazna.

The floor of the hazna was at the same level as the floors in the rest of the hammam, and the pipe through which cold water was fed into the hazna reached to above the cauldron. The ducts through which the hot water from the hazna was distributed through the hamma were about 1.00 to 1.20 m above floor level. The only entrance to the hazna was through a door from the halvat. It was entered only if someone wanted a steam bath, or if repairs were needed.

The ćulhan was in the basement area of the entire hammam apart from the šadrvan. The layout of the walls was the same in the ground-floor premises as in the ćulhan. The ćulhan walls contained sizeable window-like openings. The ćulhan was no more than 2 metres high, and the flagstones above it were held up by tufa pillars.

The entrance to the ćulhan was from a small antechamber (praefurnium) linked to the hazna. Most of this antechamber was dug into the ground and was at the same level as the floor of the ćulhan.

The opening of the ćulhan was below the cauldron in the hazna. Here there was a furnace where the fire was kept alight all the time. The warm air circulated below the paving slabs and through a system of ducts concealed in the walls of the hammam, emerging through small apertures resembling hollow cylinders around the drum of the dome. This system heated both the water and the building itself.

The furnace was usually stoked twice a day, in the morning and early evening. Each hammam would burn 10 to 20 loads of spruce wood, depending on the time of year. (A load is 100 kg, so that 10 to 20 loads is equivalent to 1000 to 2000 kg of wood.)

Alongside every hammam was a sizeable courtyard with a woodshed. Typically, hammams were built alongside hans (caravanserais). (H. Kreševljaković, Banje u Bosni i Hercegovini (1462-1916)).

(10) There is now a shop between Baščaršija square and the plot, while the entrance to the hammam is just where the entrance to the Gvozden café was in the first half and early second half of the 20th century.  H. Kreševljaković, Banje u Bosni i Hercegovini (1462-1916), Sarajevo: Svjetlost, 1952, 53

(11) H. Kreševljaković, Banje u Bosni i Hercegovini (1462-1916), Sarajevo: Svjetlost, 1952, 53

(12) Evidence in writing of this has been preserved in a document of 1736.

(13) H. Kreševljaković, Banje u Bosni i Hercegovini (1462-1916), Sarajevo: Svjetlost, 1952, 53 .

(14) H. Kreševljaković, Banje u Bosni i Hercegovini (1462-1916), Sarajevo: Svjetlost, 1952, 53

(15) Here there are the remains of part of a dome

(16) It was not necessary for every hammam to have its own separate water supply; the water could be supplied from another pipeline for which an annual rent or mukata was paid. H. Kreševljaković, Banje u Bosni i Hercegovini (1462-1916), Sarajevo: Svjetlost, 1952, 20

(17) This same branch of the pipeline supplied the fountain in the courtyard of the old Orthodox church which is very close by, to the north of the hammam. History of the Firuz-bey hammama, Institute for the Protection of the Cultural, Historical and Natural Heritage of Sarajevo Canton, 6 March 2007, 2

(18) Another five street fountains were connected to this water pipe, one of which was by the Jahja pasha mosque. There are documents in writing to the effect that the Bosnian tefterdar (finance minister) of the day, Sadik ef. Ćurćić, asked the muteveli of the Firuz-bey vakuf to supply his house in the Jahja pasha mahala with water from this pipeline. The muteveli agreed once ef Ćurćić paid for the reservoir in Sedrenik to be provided with extra waterfrom the Smajil spring and Orašnica, which was confirmed by a commission and recorded by qadi (judge) Ibrahim of Sarajevo on 17 Dhu l-Qa'dah 1148 (30 March 1736). This was a clear example of concern for the water supply for the hammam. H. Kreševljaković, Banje u Bosni i Hercegovini (1462-1916), Sarajevo: Svjetlost, 1952, 53

 (19) During the first half of the 19th century a prominent citizen of Sarajevo, Ahmed Munib ef. Glođo, agreed to maintain the water pipe from the Jahja pasha mosque to the Firuz-bey hammam. Since the hammam closed down shortly after, this branch soon fell into neglect. H. Kreševljaković, Vodovodi i gradnje na vodi u starom Sarajevu, Sarajevo: Sarajevo City Savings Mutual, Islamic Joint-Stock Press, 1939, 75

(20) H. Kreševljaković, Vodovodi i gradnje na vodi u starom Sarajevu, Sarajevo: Sarajevo City Savings Mutual, Islamic Joint-Stock Press, 1939, 75

(21) The model was made in the early years of the second half of the 20th century by Alija Bejtić and others, and is housed in an annex of the Museum of Sarajevo.

(22) Some specialists regarded this restoration plan as ill-conceived, and provided their own counter-proposal.

Efforts to reconstruct the Firuz-bey hammam may be regarded as unjustified. The reasons for this are:

-          there is no reliable documentation on which reconstruction could be based

-          the property has lost more than 90% of its original appearance

-          there is clearly no further need for an old bathhouse.

The remains should be conserved and integrated into a modern architectural edifice that will not spoil the Sarajevo Čaršija area. This would give the remains of the Firuz-bey hammam a new role in space appropriate to its importance.

The new property on the remains of the old should be designed and executed to contrast with it, which implies a modern building not in imitation of the Čaršija townscape but taking into account its qualities, scale, heights, accents, vistas and other features that should be accentuated.

A structurally new creation should be designed as independent of the old, since the old remains are incapable of taking any load. Their role in the new design should be purely of a visual, aesthetic and compositional nature; they could remain visible in both the interior and exterior (V. Sanković, Revitalizacija graditeljske baštine, Sarajevo: NNP Naša riječ doo, 2000, 63, 64). Others held similar views, but thought that the contrastive method was too coarse for a filigree-like historical townscape such as the one where the Firuz-bey hammam was located, and thus proposed limited and reversible interventions appropriate to the historic fabric of the Sarajevo Čaršija. 

(23) It is clear from this document that the aim of the investigations was to “confirm the existence of the architecture of the former Firuz-bey hammam and other remains, if any, on the site, with archaeological finds serving to fill the gaps in our knowledge where the scholarly study of the history of Sarajevo is concerned.”  Trial digs should be used to ascertain whether the foundations of the hammam have survived and to determine the level of dereliction of the remains of the building. The drawing shows that three archaeological trial trenches were proposed on the area of the property built in the mid 20th century.

(24) This site has survived as to its foundations, but it is only in the area of the old šadrvan that walls have survived to a height of a few metres (V. Sanković, Revitalizacija graditeljske baštine, Sarajevo: NNP Naša riječ doo, 2000, 63, 64). The drawing shows that three archaeological trial trenches were proposed on the area of the property built in the mid 20th century.



Firuz-bey hamam, the site and remains of the historic buildingFiruz-bey hamam, southeast part of the siteFiruz-bey hamam, southeast part of the siteFiruz-bey hamam, northeast part of the site
Firuz-bey hamam, east part of the siteFiruz-bey hamam, west part of the siteFiruz-bey hamam, northwest part of the buildingFiruz-bey hamam, northwest part of the building, interior
Remains of the hamamRemains of the hamamRemains of the hamamDetail, arc shaped niche
WindowChimney  


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