Meskó Csaba: Thermal Baths - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1999)

columns. This method is exemplified, besides the Rác and Császár Baths, by the Király (King) Baths, whose central section is the finest representative of the type.

This baths probably has the most fascinating history of ail Turkish baths. It lacked an independent hot-water base when it was built and it has none today, too. The situation begs the question: why did the Turks erect it far away from the springs -in the first place? There can be only one explanation, namely that there was no bath within the walls of Buda Castle, but the Turks would want to ensure that bathing facilities were available in the case of a siege. That was why they built the baths next to what was then the

THE ORIGINAL COLD-WATER WELL AMD A SECTION OF THE LARCH-WOOD PIPING IN THE INTRAMURAL MUSEUM

of Király Baths

Kakas-kapu (Rooster Gate), on the inside of the gate, installing a larch-wood pipeline to convey hot water from a spring of the baths which stood by a gunpowder mill in or near the location of today’s Lukács Baths.

Construction work was started by the Buda pasha known as Arslan (Lion) in 1565. Later the pasha was to receive the silken string from the sultan (i.e., the symbol of its recipient’s having lost favour with the ruler), which is

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