Arab Baths, "El Bañuelo"

The bath or hamman (among people from al- Andalus) was a public, civic and in some way religious building. It comes from times of the King from the Zirí Dynasty Badis Ibn Habas.

The Arabs inherited the Roman springs tradition from Byzantium and Rome through Middle East and North Africa cities.

The Arab baths used to have three or four rooms, together with a courtyard that is useful for going in. The first room is rectangular and was used as a cold water room and was followed by a square one with great dimensions, with horseshoe arcades in three of its sides, corresponding to the warmer water room. Finally, another rectangular room with two spaces where the water baths were placed was the hottest water room.

In order to properly isolate the interior and exterior, tick mortar walls were used over which stone and brick vaults with octagonal and star- shape skylights were put up in order to let the entrance of light, exit of steams and make lighter the vault weight.

The walls were covered with stucco and painted. We should highlight the interior decoration, based on columns, capitals, painted baseboards, marble floors and perforated vaults with star- shape lucernes that let the perfect ventilation of the bath.

Interesting resources

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