Two mirror-image bathhouses, one for men and one for women, sit side by side under the domes of Sultan Hamamı in Tokat's Su İçmez neighbourhood. Its founder and building date are unknown; the plan points to the early 13th century, and its present look is generally attributed to a 1976 repair of the changing rooms.
In each section the rooms follow the same order from north to south: changing room, cool room, hot room, water tank and furnace. The men's side has four iwans and four private cubicles, the women's side three of each. As old photographs show, the men's changing room was once covered by a dome; today it has a pyramidal concrete roof, and the women's changing room, entered by a door on the west front, was given the same kind of roof in the repair.
In the men's section the cool room is divided into three bays, a dome in the middle and mirror vaults on either side, while the hot room has half-domes over its iwans and domes on squinches over its cubicles. The women's cool room consists of two domed bays, and its hot room uses star vaults over the iwans and domes on squinches over the cubicles. In the domes, small glass openings let in daylight.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Tokat as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 2 °C in January to 22.5 °C in August; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in May, June, July, August and September; rainfall is heaviest in May (59 mm) and lightest in August (9 mm). Long-term means for 1929-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
