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Saturday, August 28, 2010

The Long, Unglamorous History of the Toilet

The toilet is one of those things we take for granted, until it breaks down or we go somewhere without them. How did our modern comfort system come about? Toilet plumbing is older than you think!
Ancient cultures were surprisingly adept at moving water around in a way that kept people from having to walk through pools of their own feces. (That was really more of a Medieval European thing.) Cultures as far back as 3000 BC were flushing away their problems—so who you callin’ primitive? Members of the Harrappa civilization in what is now India had toilets in their homes that drained into subterranean clay chambers. The residents of Skara Brae, a 31st century BC settlement in what’s now Scotland, were even clever enough to use a draining system that exploited a nearby river to automatically sweep out their dirty business.
None of these systems were anything like the flush toilet -that came later. Read all about it here.

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