Nafiz Paşa Baths

The Nafiz Paşa Baths are a historic Ottoman hammam in Erzincan District, the administrative centre of Erzincan Province in the upper Euphrates valley of eastern Anatolia, a city whose position at the junction of several major routes made it an important provincial hub despite its vulnerability to the seismic activity that has repeatedly reshaped its built environment. Named after Nafiz Paşa, an Ottoman official associated with the city's administration, the baths served a community whose urban fabric has been repeatedly rebuilt following major earthquakes, most devastatingly in 1939. The hammam's heritage significance reflects the importance attached to preserving examples of the bathing tradition in a region where much of the historic built environment has been lost to natural catastrophe.