The inscriptions
The inscriptions at the entrance record the endowment, the date and the architect:
- The income of the endowment was to go first to the soup kitchen; the remainder to the furnace stokers, to named persons, and to the scholars, jurists and Qur’an reciters of the town.
- The bath is recorded as built by Bayezid I in AH 784.
- The keystone names the builder: Ömer son of İbrâhim.
An inscription naming the architect is rare: the master builder is very seldom named on baths of the early Ottoman and beylik periods.
Architecture
The dome of about 20 metres over the men’s changing hall is exceptionally large for a bath of its time, and the interior is richly decorated with muqarnas (stalactite) work. Local tradition tells of a private basin in the men’s section reserved for Bayezid I.
In the Ahi tradition, the patron of bath-keepers is held to be Salman the Persian (Selmân-ı Pâk), a companion of the Prophet.
Today
The bath was damaged in the fire of 1964–65 and repaired in 1968, 1974 and 2006. Sources differ on its current use, so ask locally if you would like to see inside. The bath is part of the Yıldırım Bayezid Complex.