Listed as the Esma Sultan bath, the building goes by several other names. Some publications call it the Dündar Bey bath, others the Lower Bath, and locally it is known as the Çarşı bath because it stands in the Çarşı quarter.
Its date rests on thin ground. There is no inscription and no endowment deed. According to the foundation inscription reported in the literature it was built in 1307–08 by Dündar Bey, one of the founders of the Hamidoğulları principality, which was active around Isparta and Antalya.
A search in the foundations archive found no record at all relating to a building of this name in Eğirdir. What it did produce, in a document sent by the registration department in 2014 at the request of the Eğirdir municipality, was an older ruling establishing that Hızır Bey had an endowed bath in the town of Eğirdir.
Restoration work begun in 2013 and completed in 2014 returned the building to its original form, and it is in use as a bath today.
Getting there
- Access
- In the Çarşı neighbourhood of central Eğirdir, reachable by any vehicle.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Isparta as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 1.9 °C in January to 23.5 °C in August; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in May, June, July, August and September; rainfall is heaviest in December (86 mm) and lightest in August (14 mm). Long-term means for 1929-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
