Çaybaşı Baths

The Çaybaşı Baths are a historic Ottoman hammam in Korkuteli District of Antalya Province in southwestern Turkey, in the fertile inland plateau of the Taurus Mountain foothills where the high Anatolian tableland transitions to the steep coastal slopes descending toward the Mediterranean. Korkuteli is an agricultural town at an altitude of nearly 1,000 metres, where the cool highland climate and productive grain and apple orchards supported a prosperous rural community whose hammam served as the social and hygienic anchor of Ottoman provincial life in this elevated interior district. The baths provided the community of this high Taurus plateau town with the weekly bathing ritual that was equally essential in the cool mountain air and the warm coastal towns of the Ottoman Mediterranean world.