Turkish hamman

The Turkish hamman works at a low temperature for a sauna. Yet the humidity level is very much higher than in a finnish sauna, smoke sauna or a russian banya. 

The turkish sauna is rather a complex built of marble than a building in your back yard. Much like the roman steambaths. An essential part of the hamman culture is massage. Likewise, it has pools and baths for your enjoyment.

In an about.com article (http://spas.about.com/od/spahistoryandculture/a/turkishbaths.htm) Julie Earle-Levine describes her experience "Your attendant will give you a cotton wrap, or pestemal, and a pair of slippers, or terlik, along with a key to your [dressing] cubicle" and continues "I was taken to a warm, humid room with a raised stone platform (goebektas) in the center, surrounded by bathing alcoves, in pretty coloured quartz tiles."

Popular hammans have a long history and are in old magnificent buildings with arches and columns. You use the very humid heat room called harara (heated to 40-50 degrees Celsius). Before washing, a coarse mitt is used to rub off the dead layer of skin. 

Mikkel Aaland wrote (http://www.cyberbohemia.com/Pages/Hammam.htm) "We entered the first stage of the five-step progression through the hammam. First is the seasoning of the body with heat; second is the vigorous massage; third is the peeling off of the outer layer of skin, and removal of body hairs; fourth, the soaping, and fifth, relaxation. "

The hamman is a derivate of the Roman and Greek steambaths. It is heated in much the same way - indirectly. The humidity and heat comes from heated water pools. There are several colder rooms where you can cool down. The hamman has something of a religious feel to it, vested with small mini-rituals. If you enter the harara, your attendant shouts a cry!  This is to scare away the dijans and phantoms who are believed to live in the clouds of steam.