Long ago, in a time before the toilet!

In this modern day and age a bathroom is something that we would all consider to be a basic human right. While there are people in some parts of the world that are irrefutably stricken by poverty and quite literally ‘don’t have a pot to piss in’, for the majority it is simply something we take for granted.

So what did we do before bathrooms? That’s right, we found a nice quiet spot in the woods and we went about our business and then we’d take a casual stroll to the nearest body of water and have a little dip to wash the dirt from our bodies. Needless to say, it’s no wonder people always look so dirty in historical movies; if the only bath I was ever going to get was freezing cold I’d do it once in a blue-moon too!

Where did the earliest bathrooms come from? As it happens, in the ancient world our ancestors were surprisingly pretty darn good at designing rather sophisticated toilets. Archaeologists have discovered remains of stone huts that ancient farmers in the Orkney Islands once inhabited. A number of these huts were built with small drains underneath them and others had cubicles over the drains. I think it’s safe to assume that there may have been toilets inside them. Clever buggers eh?

In ancient Egypt the wealthy had some rather incredible bathrooms and toilets in their homes. They had seats that were crafted from limestone and beneath them were sand filled pots. Unfortunately for the slaves, these pots would have to be emptied by hand. At least there was never any shortage of sand though right?

There is a common misconception that the Romans were the first civilisation to pioneer the sewage system, however it was the Indus Valley Civilisation that had streets of which were built on grids and innovating networks of sewers that were layered beneath. The toilets were then flushed with water which was a huge step in the right direction for the slave’s right? No more scooping poop!

It is most certainly a fascinating thing when you consider just how far we have come in such a short period of time. I accept that several thousand years is a long time for us humans though in the grand scheme of the cosmos; a few thousand years is nothing. We’ve gone from holes in the bottom of our stone huts and buckets full of smelly sand to marvellous porcelain thrones with under-seat heating and velvety smooth toilet paper.

Nowadays bathrooms have LCD TV’s installed in the wall so that we can have a bath while watching the history channel and learning about how the Ancient Egyptians used to have to poo into sand-filled containers. What a wonderful age we live in, indeed.