May 26 Mashhad - first stop the bathhouse museum!

The streets of Mashhad

We ducked hrough a small street bazaar to end up in the bathhouse

What an amazing place!  Mahdi Quli Beq, a Turkish Amir (leader) of Khorasan in C11th bequeathed this bathhouse and other properties to the Holy Shrine of Imam Reza, where we’re heading next. 

The bathhouse is now a museum and is beautifully restored with well labeled exhibits including samovars, clothing, washing implements and cosmetics. It also houses a rather special photographic exhibition of traditional crafts and artisans at work. 

Frescos like this adorned walls and ceilings

Each dome had a skylight which gave the whole place a light airy feel.

The walls and ceilings are painted with images depicting contemporary stories of those times. These are many layers thick as the humidity impacted the stucco and colours. 

The building comprised many rooms with different uses including an open area containing a huge blue pool for the young women to play in when the men weren’t around - there were separate access times for the men and women. 

The large entertainment pool

This stockehold heater the bathhouse. Furnace is on the right, chimneys and drafts on the back wall.

Under the floor at one end of the house was brick lined room called a Stockehold, basically the furnace room, which provided heating for the walls and various pools and baths via copper trays (Tians) throughout the building. A brilliant design. 

Clothing and footware

A fascinating array of cosmetics used for all manner of things 

Dotted around the interior walls were museum dispalays including the clothing and footwear that would have been worn in the bathhouse.  One display that caught my eye was cosmetics. A couple of the cosmetics used. No 15 - 'Venetian Ceruse' also known as Spirit of Saturn a C16th cosmetic used as a skin whitener. No 14 - gum and sap called ‘milk vetch’ used to strengthen and condition the hair. Intriguing.

After a quick lunch we headed to the Holy Shrine.  The restaurant was an interesting affair. Being Ramadam eating houses were restricted to visiters and travellers and the menu was rather limited but it satisfied our needs. While we ate, our guide went to pray and met up with us afterwards.