The Yıldız Hamamı stands in Amasya's Hatuniye quarter, on the northern bank of the Yeşilırmak, immediately west of the Hatuniye Mosque. Sources also call it the Bülbül Hatun Hamamı, the Hatuniye Hamamı and the Çukur Hamam. It is one unit of the complex completed in 1510 by Bülbül Hatun, wife of the Ottoman sultan Bayezid II, and when considered together with the neighbouring mosque, school and soup kitchen it makes sense both as a place of bathing and as a source of revenue for a pious endowment. The site, moreover, has a bathing tradition reaching back to the Seljuk period, and the relationship of that earlier past to the present building has not been fully clarified in the sources.

The Hatuniye Quarter and the Founder of the Complex

What is known about Bülbül Hatun, who commissioned the bath, is limited. Her place and date of birth are not recorded; she is thought to have been of slave origin, and when and how she entered the palace is unknown. Some works give her name as Bülbül bint Abdullah, while her own endowment deeds record it as Bülbül bint Abdulmennan. She was the mother of Şehzade Ahmed, whom Bayezid II regarded as his heir but who lost the struggle for the throne to Selim I. Çağatay Uluçay, relying on the Islamic court registers of Bursa, states that Şehzade Mahmud and Hundi Sultan were also her children.

Her link with Amasya goes back to the years in which her husband and then her son served as sanjak governors. As a prince, Bayezid II had governed the sanjak of Amasya for many years, and Şehzade Ahmed was born in the city and later held the same post after his father. For this reason Bülbül Hatun spent most of her life in Amasya. After Şehzade Ahmed was strangled on the orders of Selim I in 1513, she settled in Bursa. Selim I left most of the property remaining from her son to her; Bülbül Hatun spent this income on Ahmed's tomb, to which she endowed candlesticks, a prayer rug, reading stands and five books. When she died in 1515 she was buried in the same tomb.

The Hatuniye quarter, where the complex was founded, lies on the northern side of the Yeşilırmak. The TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi entry on the Hatuniye Mosque names its neighbours explicitly: to the east of the mosque stands the Enderun Mosque, which belonged to the Danishmendids, and to the west the Yıldız Hamamı (Çukur Hamam), described as Seljuk. Mustafa Vâzıh Efendi, for his part, writes that Bülbül Hatun built a mosque with a masonry minaret, together with a soup kitchen, a school and a han, in the Inner City on a ruined site left over from the Seljuks. In the survey register of 1520 this group of buildings is entered as "İmâret-i Hâtun, mother of the late Sultan Ahmed."

The Units of the Complex

The complex was conceived as a series of buildings with complementary functions. According to the endowment deeds and later research, it contained a small mosque (mescit), a primary school (sıbyan mektebi), a soup kitchen (imaret), a fountain and a bath; for guests there was also a guesthouse (tabhane), or two rooms were used for that purpose. The mescit was later converted into a mosque. Because its qibla wall faces the riverbank, that wall was built higher than the others and twice as thick, and the inscription over its door has been removed. The interior is divided into six bays by two piers, the central bays are covered by two domes, and a single-balcony brick minaret rises at the north-west corner. The last-congregation porch has five domes, and the arches are decorated with a meander motif.

The school beside the mosque is a single-storey building of rubble stone with three courses of brick in its walls. Hüseyin Hüsâmeddin's Amasya Tarihi records that the school was of masonry and very solid, and that it was still used for the same purpose in 1882. Originally covered by two domes, the building later lost them and was roofed over with timber. The soup kitchen, evidently the busiest unit of the complex, has disappeared over time. Its plan is unknown, but it is thought to have stood in the mosque courtyard.

The operation of the soup kitchen is regulated in detail in the endowment deed, and these details matter for understanding the world to which the bath belonged. The kitchen served the endowment's staff, the ten orphans studying at the school, elderly women in need of care and the guests staying in the guesthouse. Forty bowls were set aside for forty poor people, and each bowl was to receive twenty-four dirhams of meat, a ladle of stew and three loaves of bread. Two meals were served each day, rice soup early in the morning and wheat soup after the afternoon prayer. Halva was cooked in the month of Rajab, zerde on the Night of Barat, herise every evening in Ramadan, and ashure on the tenth day of Muharram. The cost of these meals and of the whole staff was met from the endowment's revenues, and the bath was one of the items of that income.

The Seljuk Bath and the Problem of Two Baths

According to official descriptions, a bath already stood on the site in the Seljuk period, and the present building was most probably rebuilt over it. The TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi likewise regards the Yıldız Hamamı as Seljuk. What complicates this view is that the endowment deeds and local historical writing speak of two separate baths.

According to the deed, two baths are among the properties endowed by Bülbül Hatun. One is the New Bath (hamâm-ı cedîd), adjoining the soup kitchen and known as the Bülbül Hatun Hamamı. The other is the Old Bath (hamâm-ı atîk), known as the Çelebiler Hamamı, which passed to her through legal documents in her possession and through a valid exchange and substitution. Abdi-zâde Hüseyin Hüsâmeddin writes that the bath endowed by Bülbül Hatun lies west of the mosque, that it was built in 1155 by Rıdvan Bey, one of the emirs of the Seljuk sultan Mesud, that it later became the property of Şâd Geldi Paşa, one of the emirs of Amasya, then entered Bülbül Hatun's estate, and that it was endowed in 1510. Mustafa Vâzıh Efendi, on the other hand, reports that two ruined baths called the Çelebiler Hamamı were bought by Bülbül Hatun and added to her endowment after repair: one is the Lower Bath, next to the mosque, and the other the Upper Bath, at the head of the Madenüs Bridge beside the Seljuk palace.

In his study published in Vakıflar Dergisi, Ahmet Gündüz compares these accounts with the endowment records and concludes as follows: the bath that Abdi-zâde links to the Seljuk period must be the Çelebiler Hamamı of the deed; Vâzıh Efendi's Lower Bath corresponds to the Bülbül Hatun Hamamı, and the Upper Bath to the Old Bath known as the Çelebiler Hamamı. If this reading is correct, the building erected in 1510 as part of the complex and the building tied to the Seljuk tradition may not be the same structure. The official description of the Upper Bath, under the name Altuntaş Hamamı, places it in the Hatuniye quarter near the Madenüs Bridge and dates it probably to the seventeenth century, which also supports treating the two buildings separately. Thus, although it seems highly probable that the Yıldız Hamamı rose on Seljuk foundations, it cannot be said that this has been proved by a document.

According to some sources, the bath was called Çukur ("pit" or "hollow") Hamam because the building lies at a lower level than its surroundings. No document confirming this explanation, which rests on local tradition, is known. The origin of the name Yıldız ("star") is likewise undocumented. According to the family that ran the bath for many years, the present name was given after the major repair carried out after 1963; it seems plausible that the star-shaped light openings gave rise to the name, but there is no firm basis for it.

The Endowment Deeds and the Bath's Place in the Endowment

Two deeds regulating Bülbül Hatun's endowments have survived. The first is dated 23 Rabi al-awwal 917 (1511); it was drawn up under the supervision of the kadi of Amasya, Muhammed bin Safiyüddin, and approved by the military judge of Rumeli, Ahmed bin Mahmud. A copy of the same document was transcribed in 1722 by the kadi of Amasya, Mustafa, from the original without alteration. The second deed is dated 29 May 1513 and was drawn up about a month and a half after the killing of Şehzade Ahmed. The two texts are identical in content; the only difference lies in the order of trustees. In the first deed the trusteeship, after Şehzade Ahmed, passes to the eldest of his daughters and to their children, while in the second it is left to Ahmed's eldest son and his descendants and, should the line die out, to the kadi of Amasya. The timing suggests that the change is connected with the death of her son.

Among the endowment's properties are the divani revenues of the town of Lâdik, the village of Akpınar, shares of the village of Yassıviran, certain villages around Merzifon and Zile, Kökser and Viranpınarı near Turhal, a han, an ice house and shops in Tokat, and a mill near Havza. At the end of the list come two baths: the whole of the new bath adjoining the soup kitchen and known as the Bülbül Hatun Hamamı, and the whole of the old bath in Amasya called the Çelebiler Hamamı. In this respect the bath is one of the income-producing branches of a system that fed the poor, supplied meat to the children in school and paid its staff. The rent of the leased bath went into the endowment's treasury, and the soup kitchen's cauldron boiled from that same treasury.

In the Ottoman city it was a normal practice for baths to be so closely tied to endowments. According to the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi entry on baths, market baths in Anatolia were built to provide revenue for endowments. Bülbül Hatun's arrangement stands within this tradition; what distinguishes it is that its owner was a lady of the sultan's household and that its revenues were divided between Amasya and Lâdik. Evliya Çelebi notes that Lâdik was exempt from all taxes because it was the endowment of Bülbül Hatun, mother of Şehzade Ahmed.

Architectural Features

According to the official description, the bath has a square plan and is covered by a lantern dome. South of the domed changing room lies the cold room; east of the cold room are the lavatories, and to its west the hot room and the furnace. From the changing room one passes to the cold room through a small door in the middle of the south wall, while the door in the west wall opens into the hot room. The dome over the changing room is carried on squinches. The western arm of the hot room is covered by a half dome, and the transition zone of the central dome is organised with stepped muqarnas. The furnace (külhan) is the hearth where the water is heated, and a water tank stands beside it.

This arrangement is a plain Amasya example of the classical Ottoman bath scheme. In the description of the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, the changing room (camekân) is generally a large domed space, cooler than the rest of the bath because it is not heated, and it receives its light from windows and from the lantern at the centre of the dome. The cold room, or warm room, serves as a transitional section between the changing room and the hot room. The hot room is the main bathing space, entered through a narrow door only as high as a person, with a central navel stone (göbek taşı). The glass bulbs set into the domes of these sections are known in common speech as elephant's-eye (fil gözü) lights, and in some baths the sockets in which they sit were given a star shape. The light openings in the domes of the Yıldız Hamamı likewise admit a soft glow; it is said that the walls are built of cut stone and brick and that the hot room has basins and a navel stone.

It also deserves attention that the building is not a double bath today. Since men's and women's sections were not built separately, the bath is used by women and men in turn on different days and at different hours. Compared with the other Ottoman baths of Amasya, its square plan and domed system appear plain. The Mustafa Bey Hamamı (1436) has two separate domes over its changing room and hot room, while the Kumacık Hamamı (1495) has a large dome over its changing room, a main dome, four iveans and two private bathing cells (halvet). The encyclopedia records that there were fifteen baths in Amasya at the beginning of the sixteenth century.

Account Books and Repairs

The later working of the endowment can be followed in its annual account ledgers. In the ledger of 1669-1670 the endowment's yearly income appears as 76,000 akçe; of this, 42,000 akçe came from village and stamp-tax revenues and 34,000 akçe from the rents of baths, dye-houses and shops. The same ledger lists a rent of 7,500 akçe for the Hamam-ı Cedîd and 9,000 akçe for the Hamam-ı Atîk, and records that the two baths in Amasya were entirely ruined and yielded no income. In the ledger of 1715 the Hamam-ı Cedid brings in 225 and the Hamam-ı Atik 205 guruş, and the expenditure on the bath items is kept to small sums. The article does not clearly separate which baths these names refer to. Since the endowment also had a bath in Lâdik, and since the same ledgers mention the Upper Bath and the Lower Bath of Amasya separately, it does not seem safe to attach every entry to the building in Hatuniye. The broader fact that the ledgers show is that bath rents held as decisive a place in the endowment's income as village produce and market taxes.

Earthquakes and floods put this bath under strain, as they did all of Amasya's building stock. The Great Anatolian Earthquake of 1668 brought down the domes and minarets of many mosques in Amasya and its surroundings; the endowment documents show that income was set aside for years to repair the mosque, bath and water channels at Lâdik. The most detailed information about the recent history of the Yıldız Hamamı comes from the account of the family that ran it for many years. According to this account, the bath worked as a bathing place until about 1924, after which a grape press was placed in the changing area and it was used as a wine store. In the earthquake of 1939 the main dome fell, flood waters filled the interior with mud, and rubbish was thrown inside.

According to the same account, the family cleaned and repaired the bath in 1948 and reopened it. It operated under the name Çukur Hamam until 1963, when, after a major repair, its name was changed to Yıldız Hamamı. A further repair was made in 2002, and in 2012 the business was handed over to a brother. The family states that they have run the bath for three generations and that, had the first repair not been made, only a ruin and an empty plot would stand there. This information is the testimony of the operators themselves and has not been confirmed by an official document.

The Bath in Everyday Life

In the Ottoman city the bath was a place of meeting and celebration beyond its role in cleanliness. Brides' baths, the ceremonies before circumcision and the cleansing before festivals were among the customs passed from generation to generation beneath such domes; although no record documents these practices for the bath in Hatuniye, it is a generally accepted fact for Ottoman baths that the daily rhythm of those living in the same quarter was shaped around the bath. In the complex the bath was closely bound up with the mosque: according to the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, a vaulted room containing four cupboards adjoins the mosque's last-congregation porch on one side and the Yıldız Hamamı on the other, while in the courtyard a fountain with a reservoir and a lavatory stand in a pointed-arched niche.

Today the bath stands at its address on Derya Street, adjoining the Hatuniye Mosque. In official lists the Yıldız Hamamı is counted among the baths still in operation. The Mustafa Bey Hamamı and the Kumacık Hamamı appear on the same list. Anyone walking in the Hatuniye quarter sees the mosque, the school, the fountain and the bath within a few steps of one another; even though the complex's soup kitchen no longer exists, the remaining buildings still make the order of the endowment's foundation legible.

Chronology

1155: According to Abdi-zâde Hüseyin Hüsâmeddin, Rıdvan Bey, one of the emirs of the Seljuk sultan Mesud, has a bath built that would later pass to Bülbül Hatun's endowment (Gündüz links it with the Çelebiler Hamamı).

1510: Bülbül Hatun's Hatuniye complex and bath are completed.

1511: The first endowment deed is drawn up under the supervision of the kadi of Amasya, Muhammed bin Safiyüddin.

1513: Şehzade Ahmed is killed; Bülbül Hatun draws up the second endowment deed, dated 29 May, and changes the order of trusteeship.

1515: Bülbül Hatun dies in Bursa and is buried in the tomb of her son Şehzade Ahmed.

1669-1670: The endowment's account ledger records an annual income of 76,000 akçe.

About 1924: The bath ceases to operate as a bathing place, and its changing area is for a time used as a grape press and wine store.

1939: According to the operators' account, an earthquake brings down the main dome and flood waters fill the building.

1948: The bath is repaired and reopened.

1963: After a major repair, the name Çukur Hamam is changed to Yıldız Hamamı.

2002: The building undergoes a further repair.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Abdi-zâde Hüseyin Hüsâmeddin, Amasya Tarihi, vol. 1, Istanbul 1327-1330. amasya.gov.tr

Academic studies

  • Ahmet Gündüz, "Vakfiyeleri Işığında II. Bayezid'in Eşi Bülbül Hatun Vakıfları", Vakıflar Dergisi 55 (2021), pp. 25-53. dergipark.org.tr

Official sources

  • Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Kültür Portalı: entries on the Yıldız Hamamı and the Hatuniye Mosque (based on the Amasya Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism). kulturportali.gov.tr
  • Republic of Türkiye Amasya Governorship, Hamamlar.

Other sources

  • İ. Aydın Yüksel, "Hatuniye Camii", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 16, Istanbul 1997, pp. 500-501. islamansiklopedisi.org.tr
  • "Hamam" entry, TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi. islamansiklopedisi.org.tr
  • "Amasya" entry, TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi.
  • History of the bath as related by M. Kemal Kavlak, Tarih Gezisi, Yıldız Hamamı Amasya. tarihgezisi.com