Shahi Hamam opens to public

LAHORE
THE Walled City of Lahore Authority (WCLA) has completed excavation, conservation and restoration of Shahi Hamam, an ignored monument of Mughal era and opened it for general public.
Officials said anyone can enter this historical monument by getting an entry ticket of Rs20 at the spot. Shahi Hamam is situated just inside the Delhi Gate and was originally built in 1634 AD during the period of Mughal Emperor Shah Jehan.
Officials of the WCLA said this unique structure was buried under mud during British rule. They said the authority had spent almost Rs4 million on restoration of the monument. They added that the amount was donated by Royal Norwegian Embassy.
Restoration of Shahi Hamam was included in the package-I of WCLA under which it restored Royal trail, said Tanya Qureshi, a senior WCLA official. She said conservation of Shahi Hamam was first of its kind in the Punjab province and WCLA aimed to turn this as a hot spot for tourists. She said that excavation of Shahi Hamam was started by WCLA in November 2013 in collaboration with the Aga Khan Trust for Culture and international excavators started working on the project.
The Hamam is a single storey building covering an area of over 1,000 square metres. It is a collection of 21 inter-connected rooms offering all the facilities found in a public bath and an additional room set at an angle facing towards Makkah for offering prayers, Tanya said.
A circuit has been designed to allow orderly movement inside the historic building, which starts at the main entrance on the western side, she said, adding that a briefing room equipped with audio-visual material on the Hamam is also in the pipeline. She said since opening, a lot of Lahorites were visiting this historical site and expressing their amusement over the construction, fiasco and wall paintings.