HISTORY OF SPAS

You might be forgiven for thinking that spas have only been around for a couple of decades, but the spa has a history that originates in the old Latin phrase ‘Salus Per Aqua’ which means ‘health through water.’

Spas were originally all about water, and its healing properties. The word was first coined to describe a place where people went to improve their health using water-based therapies. The Romans weren’t the only people to have noticed the way water made them feel, though, as the ancient Babylonians and Greeks were also renowned for taking to the waters.

Some people believe that the phrase spa could also come from the famous Belgian town called Spa, where Roman soldiers were meant to have bathed their wounds in the hot spring waters. The Emperor Caracalla also credited his cured arthritis to bathing in the hot springs of Baden Baden in Germany, and was so impressed that he built his own bath house in Rome.

Although the Romans were probably the first real spa bath lovers, some of the other treatments you find on a modern day spa menu have their origins in ancient times too. It was the Middle East that provided the inspiration for the mud bath, after they found out that the silt of the Dead Sea was great for treating skin conditions. The ancient Egyptians were also partial to a bit of mud, and were convinced that mud from the Nile Delta had healing powers. Cleopatra was very fond of a bath, and preferred to beautify herself in a bath of asses’ milk to keep her looking young.

No self-respecting spa would be without a sauna – and a session in a sauna may be all about relaxation for us in the 21st century, but when they were first invented their purpose was to cleanse and purify the body. The first sauna is thought to have come from Finland, where they were timber pits inside log cabins where stones were heated up with burning logs. People would sit in the cabin and get sweaty as the logs burned out, and when it all got too much they’d go outside and cool themselves back down by rolling in the snow over and over again until they got clean. Or bored.

Many spas now have their own version of the Turkish Hammam, and the first Turkish bath routines can be traced back to the Ottoman Empire. The Hamman has its roots in religion, as the idea was that people went there to be cleansed before they entered the Mosque. Some of the older Hammams in Istanbul, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan are absolutely beautiful, featuring traditional Muslim art along with inscriptions from the Koran.

Hammams evolved into more of a sociable place where people would meet up, and where the chambers were divided into areas with different temperatures. This meant that while people could go there to be cleansed, sweating it all out, they could also sit around in a comfortable heat and have a good gossip. The famed soapy massages were carried out on the hot ‘belly stone’, an octagonal platform, where people were massaged with a goat hair mitten and washed first in hot then in cold water.

The modern spa has all this and more, just in a modern, aromatherapy-infused package! Spas today have Rasul (mud) treatments, thermal suites and hydrotherapy as well as different types of massage, complementary therapies which quite often date back to ancient rituals themselves and beauty. Not to mention state of the art gyms, cosmetic treatments and hairdressers!