ABSTRACT
Beginning with the public baths of Mohenjodaro and much later the Greek and Roman baths, sociability in the public sphere has a long history. The elaborate structure of the Roman bathhouses included perfume-booths, books, gymnasiums, libraries and reading rooms. The corporeal activity of bathing promoted some kind of sociability transforming the functional public baths into meeting places for social interaction.2 Turkish bath or hamam that spread to different parts of the Middle East during the Ottoman Empire was a Roman legacy and was much sought after for the convivial atmosphere encouraging sociability. For men in Cairo going to a hamam is as important as going to meet his friends in a café.3 The first coffee houses that came up in Mecca and Cairo in the early sixteenth century were tavern like places where in addition to swallowing of
the ‘intoxicant’ coffee, ‘a variety of forbidden things’ took place.4 It is from there that the institution later spread throughout the Ottoman Empire, and from Turkey to Western Europe. Coffee houses were the most important place for public socialization in Ottoman Istanbul, and in order to understand what was happening in society in general, one could focus on the coffee houses.5 Similarly, in other societies, the need for the public to interact socially has seen the emergence of other, similar places where the public came together. In China for example, the tea house formed the microcosm of the larger urban history.6
