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Posted on: 07/12/2000; Publication date: July 2000
Ancient Plumbing
c Plumbing & Mechanical 1989
Four years ago we began our "History of Plumbing" series with an overview of
ancient Roman plumbing. This covered the days of the Old Romans from about
1000 B.C. to A.D. 476, when the skills of the of the plumber broadened in
scope. It coincided with the discovery of ample deposits of lead and its many
uses. In particular, lead was very malleable and thus easy to fabricate into pipe
for supply and sewer systems, personal bath rooms and bath palaces. Lest we forget, the Old Roman masters were great imitators. The genius of the
Caesars lay not only in their conquests and domains, but in adopting the latest
technology of the vanquished and refining it for their personal comfort and
tastes. From the Greeks, for example, the Romans brought back functional
knowledge of hot and cold water systems and developed them into
expressions of art, as well as gross self-indulgence. The Greeks in turn probably received their instructions from the grand plumbing
masters who plied their trade on the island of Crete. It is here that
archaeologists have found precisely-engineered piping systems as well as the
world's first flushing closet. Mentioned in History of Plumbing, Part I, the
legendary palace of Knossos deserves another, more concentrated look. It is a
place where Old Roman technology perhaps pays homage as well. This time around too, we'll detail the vacation retreats of the Roman nobility
-Pompeii and Herculaneum - villas of luxury set in the first century, and then
snuffed out by a great natural disaster.
But now let's go back still further in time to the Biblical lands of clay and sand,
water and reeds, where the "good life" in early civilization depended upon
sound irrigation, flood control, an abundant water supply and open waterways
for commerce.
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Babylonia
(The Earliest Western Plumbers)
To the ancient traveler on foot or camelback, the massive-walled city of Babylon
and its network of canals and verdant croplands must have loomed like a mirage
in the simmering heat of the Near East sun. Adding to a disbelieving eye was a
300 foot high ziggurat, or temple tower, in the city's center, surrounded on all
sides by lush gardens and date palm trees that swayed upon the terraced city.Located some 50 miles south of Bagdad in what is now Iraq, the flat land today is
broken only by a series of desolate mounds and occasional patches of green
cultivation and small villages. But beneath these mounds or "tells" are shattered
remnants of past civilizations, crumbled foundations of clay cities literally layered
one on top of the other. What developed in this area between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers from about
6000 to 3000 B.C. were the beginnings of western civilization. Here the warrior
peoples of Assyria reigned with a fearsome hand over Sumerian and Babylonian
culture. In their wake were produced systems of writing and communication,
literature, a codified set of laws, a calendar and system for ascertaining time.
Wheeled vehicles became common - and water management evolved into
irrigation and dams, drains and basins and personal bathrooms of the era's rich
and famous. In existence since 2900 B.C., the city of Babylon, under the rule of King
Nebuchadnezzar (circa 605-562 B.C.), had spread on both sides of the
Euphrates River. It covered 500 acres. Many of the houses were three stories
high whose flat roofs were buttressed with timbers packed with mud. For the
poor who couldn't afford the luxury of wood, there were circular mud-brick huts
supported by a center post, the walls packed with reeds and mud. Budding plumbers worked their ingenuity with the only available resource in
unlimited supply - clay mixed with finely-chopped straw. Copper was known to
some extent from the beginning, while bronze was introduced about 2,500 B.C.
from outlying trade routes; sometimes it was alloyed with tin, sometimes with
antimony. Some working in lead (anakum) was developing too at this time, as
natives began to rivet, solder, hammer and anneal. Bitumen was especially important to the Mesopotamians. Produced in a liquid
and a solid form, it corresponded to tar and pitch, essential for construction and
for stopgap plugs in the irrigation systems.
Water was stored in large pottery jars, hand-carried from the river by household
slaves. The jars were unglazed, which was an advantage in the intensely hot
climate. Being slightly porous, the jars allowed slight evaporation that kept the
water cool. Similar jars, often lined with a coating of bitumen, held barley, wheat
and oil. Most streets of Babylon ran parallel or at right angles to the river. They were very
narrow in width, from 4-1/2 to 20 ft., and unpaved. They not only provided
access to the houses, but served as depositories of rubbish, excrement and
filth. Periodically the debris was covered with a layer of clay. In this fashion, as the
level of the streets continually rose with the debris, it became necessary to build
stairs to go down into the house until the houses were rebuilt at the new level.
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These Old Houses
The rich households and the palaces had separate bath
rooms, that is, rooms in which to "bathe" or refresh oneself with water or
anointing of oil. The ordinary folk used the banks of the canals or the cisterns in
the courtyards.Typically a bathroom of the well-to-do was a good-sized room, about 15 feet
square, and built at the south end of the house. The lower parts of the wall were
lined with baked brick as was the floor. However, the floor was overlaid with a
bitumen composition and powdered limestone. It sloped to the center of the
room where the water drained off in small runnels by baked and glazed
earthenware tiles. Although clay tubs were supposedly reported 200 years earlier in the reign of
Sargon the Great, an Assyrian king (721-705 B.C.), most sources agree that
there were no bathtubs during this period of history, during the reign of King
Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar's "bath" in all actuality was a shower, as
slaves poured water over him as he washed with a soap made of ashes of certain
plants and fats. Due to the texture of the concoction, his "shower" was probably
like a detergent rinse. There is some confusion over reports of privies at this period in history. Most
likely a privy did develop which consisted of a hole in the floor with a cesspool
underneath (a practice carried forward to modern times). But others report a
more elaborate arrangement of six "toilets" in the palace of Sargon the Great.
Those toilets had high seats which brought the latrine off the floor in the western
style. Here, archaeologies say they have found connections to drains which
discharged into a main sewer. According to their findings, the sewer was 3.28
feet high, and 164 feet long, vaulted over with baked bricks. It ran alongside the
outer wall of the palace, beneath a pavement. The sewer sloped downward to
allow the sewage to be washed down. Other bathrooms which could not be
connected with the sewer system had individual cesspools. Nebuchadnezzar's palace was built around five courtyards and included his
private quarters and his harems. Two rooms behind the throne room contained
circular wells. The space between the walls and the wells down to the water level
were firmly packed with mud, asphalt and broken brick. The king's well had three shafts close together - two were oblong, the center
one square. Above the well was a wheel and an endless chain with pottery
buckets attached, going up one oblong shaft and down the other. The center
shaft was used as an inspection pit so a man could clear out the well or repair the
machinery. The same type of well is still used today in the area, propelled by
animals. In those ancient times, slaves were the primary source of power.
It is thought that men who sought an audience with their ruler performed a kind
of ritual washing before entering his sacred presence. Drains have been found
beneath the hard-tamped floor of an anteroom. They were made from pots
whose bottoms had been knocked out, set against a row of bricks that had been
set on edge to form the rim of a basin.
Archaeologists have found traces of still other drains, of a more grisly nature in
those days when temple services called for the sacrifice of live animals and the
liberal pourings of wine and beer for the gods. At Tell Asmar, a room was
uncovered with two catch basins buried in the pavement. One was formed by a
bottomless pot, standing upright, and perforated with rows of holes. Nearby was
a smaller pot in which slanted a drain pipe of baked clay protected by terra cotta
slabs. It is supposed the drains were made to absorb the sticky substances
spilled in front of the god's statue, which otherwise would have formed puddles
on the ground. That the fluids should disappear underground was probably a
ritual requirement as well.
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Hanging Gardens
Nebuchadnezzar boasted of his magnificent shrine to his
city god Marduk, contained in the small temple he built on the summit of the
ziggurat. He plated the gypsum walls and cedar roof of the building with gold,
embellished with alabaster, lapis lazuli and precious stones. The altar was solid
gold as were the throne, footstool and statue of the god. Archaeologists figure
the room once contained about 18.5 tons of gold.The king called the great seven-storied temple, Etemananki, "House of the
Platform of Heaven & Earth." It had been started centuries before, its bricks
crumbled, destroyed, rebuilt and rebuilt again so it soared 300 feet above the flat
plain. (Babylonia was the trade center of the Near East whose population
contained captured slaves and peoples from all parts of the conquered lands.
The tower is thought to be the source of the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel.) But what had his early plumbers scrambling around was his construction of the
"Hanging Gardens of Babylon," destined to become one of the Seven Wonders
of the ancient world. It is said the King built the gardens for his queen to remind
her of the mountains and trees of her Median homeland. (One archaeologist
joked that it was probably the world's first roof garden!) The city of Babylon had been sacked and leveled 100 years earlier by the
Assyrian King Sennacherib. When Nebuchadnezzar became the head of the
new Babylonian empire, he restored the beauty of the city, and then some. The Hanging Gardens were built on a foundation of arched vaults, and rose to 75
feet. It was waterproofed with bitumen, baked brick and lead to keep the
undervaults dry. He covered the terraced structure with dirt deep enough to
support large trees and irrigation machines to keep them watered. Traces of
wells have been discovered, which suggest that the wheel of buckets
technique, or noria, was used here to raise the water to the highest point of the
terrace. The terraced construction, itself elevated by situating the gardens on the summit
of a small hill, made the tops of the trees visible above the walls from a
considerable distance. Undoubtedly it helped to perpetuate an illusive sense of
wonder over such "hanging" gardens. The botanical gardens blossomed with
fragrant flowers and decoration set among the irrigation ditches. Fruit trees
accentuated the rectangular areas of cultivation, themselves overshadowed by
palm trees. Water cascaded down from a reservoir-lake over the vegetation
beneath. Troughs and channels were built into the irrigation system and lined with
non-rusting metals such as lead and bronze. No iron was found in the system,
leaving unclear whether iron was known to the Babylonians apart from what they
may have found in meteorites. The terraces contained an extremely advanced system of internal drainage,
which ensured that all moisture was led off into large sewers of baked brick. The
sewers were roofed with slightly ogival or pointed vaulting. They consisted of a
series of slanting courses each resting on the one below, compensating for the
lack of wood or scaffolding in the design.
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Irrigation The Key
The civilization of Mesopotamia existed for 26 centuries.
It was in a position to command by trade or plunder all the resources of the
ancient world - provided it could keep the vast floodings of the Tigris and
Euphrates under strict control. From their earliest writings, the Sumerians
recounted the story of their most terrible flood, estimated by historians about
8000 B.C. (The tale perpetuates in the Biblical story of Noah and the Great
Flood.)
As irrigation was so vital to the empire, a whole network of canals was formed,
and special officials appointed to supervise them. They made sure the canals
were clear of rushes and water weeds, the courseways dredged of silt and the
banks consolidated against floods. King Hammurabi, who belonged to the first dynasty of Babylonia lived around
1760 B.C. He personally directed provincial governors to dig and dredge the
canals on a continuous basis. He also set in motion the world's first compilation of
common laws, including special provision to prevent neglect of those canals.
(Another clause deals with construction and should strike terror in the heart of
unethical contractors. In Hammurabi's code of fair and equitable justice, woe to
the builder whose house falls and kills someone. The builder would be
sentenced to death too.) The remains of the earliest aqueduct on record have been pinpointed to the
works of the Assyrian king and master builder, Sennacherib (705-681 B.C.),
who ruled with "a heart of wrath." He unleashed the power of water as a weapon
to flood and destroy the burnt and vanquished city of Babylon. In peacetime, he
harnessed it to build his own capital, Ninevah, and his palace at Khorsbad. He
developed a 10-mile long canal in three stages, including 18 fresh water courses
from the mountains, two dams and water diversion and a chain of canals.
Water ran along a strengthened conduit of hardened earth, waterproofed with
bitumen, and lined with flagstones. The aqueduct spanned the valleys on
arches, and was fed by a number of small streams to ensure a proper supply to
the town. There is practically no rainfall in Mesopotamia. But if the ground is sufficiently
moistened, acres of virtual desert can be covered with vegetation and are
amazingly fertile. From the earliest times, the rulers of Mesopotamia regarded it
as both a duty and act of piety to improve the canal system. In fact, the digging of
a canal was regarded equally in importance to a ruler as a victory in war. Both
kinds of enterprises were inscribed on clay tablets as boasts of their
accomplishments.
Ancient Mesopotamia declined under a line of weak kings who followed
Nebuchadnezzar. The city of Babylon in 539 B.C. fell into the hands of Cyrus
the Great, founder of the Persian Empire. (The late Shah of Iran claimed
himself to be the last ruling descendent.) The Persian influence was itself
overcome by the invasion by Alexander the Great in the fourth century B.C.,
and later rampages of Arabian nomadic hordes. As the land became sparsely
populated, attention to the canals waned. The canals gradually silted up. And
the land returned to desert.
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Crete
('Bullish' On Luxury Plumbing)
Across the Mediterranean Sea from Mesopotamia, the ancient people of Crete
and their Minoan sea-kings were leaving their mark on the early annals of history.
Between 3000-1500 B.C., their early plumbers had laid elaborate systems of
sewage disposal and drainage that resemble one of today. In fact, archaeologists
have discovered underground channels that remained virtually unchanged for
several centuries, except for extensions to include structures built over the
original ones. Some vestiges of the pipes still carry off the heavy rains.Unlike hot and dry Mesopotamia, Crete suffered from extremes of variable climate
and geography. Some say those forces provided the catalyst to design systems for
the inhabitants' comfort. Likewise, the sharp and jagged slopes of the country
provided an early understanding into the principles of hydraulics. It was originally surmised that the Minoan civilization had been an
offshoot of the ancient civilization of Greece. When the fabled palace of King Minos
at Knossos came to light, however, it proved there was a separate and earlier
civilization, and King Minos was no ordinary monarch.
Knossos was the Minoan capital and home to a population of about 100,000,
crowded into an area of about 22 acres. The multi-storied houses of sun-dried brick
or dressed stone encircled on different levels the king's intricate, four-story palace.
There was a public inn too, located near the palace. It featured a convivial foot-bath
with grandiose dimensions of 65- by 4-feet-6 inches by 18 inches deep.
Surrounding slabs which formed seats for the foot-bathers jutted over the bath. The palace of the king had been built up over the centuries, and already
experienced one earthquake and ruin in its history. But by 1500 B.C., it had become
four stories high, with endless winding passages, innumerable halls and corridors
and rooms of state and storerooms. The entire floor space comprising 1,500 rooms
spanned five acres. Its huge rectangular central court faced north and south. The palace exemplifies a labyrinth construction; indeed, the word labyrs is derived
from the Greek meaning "double ax." To the Greeks, the Place of Minos was truly a
labyrinth, the house of the double ax, and the double ax design appears on its
decoration. The early plumbing engineers took advantage of the steep grade of the land to
devise a drainage system with lavatories, sinks and manholes. Archaeologists have
found pipe laid in depths from just below the surface in one area, to almost 11 feet
deep in others. They constructed a main sewer of masonry, which linked four large stone shafts
emanating from the upper stories of the palace. Evidently the shafts acted as
ventilators and chutes for household refuse. The shafts and conduit were formed by
cement-lined limestone flags, but earthenware or burnt clay pipes were used in the
remainder of the system. These where laid out under passages, not under the living
rooms. The drainage system consisted of terra cotta pipes, from 4 inches by 6 inches in
diameter. The rain water from the roofs and the courts and the overflows from the
cisterns carried the water down into buried drains of pottery pipe. The pipes had
perfect socket joints, so tapered that the narrow end of one pipe fixed tightly into
the broad end of the next one. The tapering sections allowed a jetting action to
prevent accumulation of sediment.
The queen's bathroom featured decorated walls covered with monochrome
frescoes and decorated friezes, and plaster stands which held ewers and washing
basins. At the heart was a 5 foot long, tapered bathtub. The tub was painted terra
cotta, and decorated in a bas relief of a watery motif of reeds. Evidently filled and
emptied by hand, the tub had no outlet. The used water was discarded into a cavity
in the floor and connected directly with the main drain. The drain discharged into the
River Kairatos.
Not too far away was the world's earliest "flushing" water closet, screened off by
gypsum partitions on either side. It was flushed by rain water or by water held in
cisterns. Two conduits were built into the wall. There were several other closets
found in the palace, too. The Minoan religion is elaborately bound up with the image of the bull. Periodic
"roarings" far underground in the earthquake-prone region were attributed to the
bellowing of the huge mythical bull, the Minotaur, as he thrashed about in the
labyrinth caves below. Undoubtedly he portended the future. In 1400 B.C., the
Minoan kingdom at Knossos was leveled, devastated and lost for centuries by a
cataclysmic earthquake.
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Egypt
(Taming The Nile)
From ancient times, the rise and fall of the River Nile portended periods of famine or
good fortune for the peoples of Egypt. Other than wells, the River Nile is the only
source of water in the country. During an idyllic year, the flooding of the Nile would
begin in July, and by September its receding waters would deposit a rich, black silt in
its wake for farming. Before taming the river, however, the ancient Egyptians had to
overcome the river's peculiar problem.The Nile runs along an alluvial plain, the ebb and tide of the Nile corresponding to an
annual movement of the ground. When the Nile is the lowest, the ground
completely dries up. When it floods, the water seeps into the dry soil and causes the
ground to rise as much as a foot or two like some bloated sponge. As the inundation
subsides the ground settles again to its original dry level, but never settles evenly. The name Egypt means "Two Lands," reflecting the two separate kingdoms of
Upper and Lower prehistoric Egypt - the Delta region in the north and a long length
of sandstone and limestone in the south. In 3000 B.C., a single ruler, Menes,
unified the entire land and set the stage for an impressive civilization that lasted
3,000 years. He began with the construction of basins to contain the flood water,
digging canals and irrigation ditches to reclaim the marshy land. From these earliest of times, so important was the cutting of a dam that the event
was heralded by a royal ceremony. King Menes is credited with diverting the course
of the Nile to build the city of Memphis on the site where the great river had run. By
2500 B.C., an extensive system of dikes, canals and sluices had developed. It
remained in use until the Roman occupation, circa 30 B.C. to A.D. 641
For pure water, the Egyptians depended upon wells. Their prowess in divining
hidden sources is shown in the "Well of Joseph," constructed about 3000 B.C. near
the Pyramids of Gizeh. Workers had to dig through 300 feet of solid rock to tap into
the water. Egypt's pyramid-temples which have withstood
thousands of years of time also attest to the skill of the ancient construction workers.
The earliest pyramids were built from 2660-2500 B.C., a period running parallel with
the Sumer-Mesopotamians when they achieved their greatest advances in
civilization. Yet any cultural ties that Egypt had with Mesopotamia had vanished by
this period. By 2500 B.C. the Egyptians were pretty adept with drainage construction,
accentuated by the significance that water played in their priestly rituals of
purification and those affecting the burial of the kings. According to their religion, to
die was simply to pass from one state of life to another. If the living required food,
clothing and other accoutrements of daily life, so did the dead. Thus, it's not
surprising that archaeologists have discovered bathrooms in some tombs.
Excavators of the mortuary temple of King Suhura at Abusir discovered niches in the
walls and remnants of stone basins. These were furnished with metal fittings for use
as lavatories. The outlet of the basin closed with a lead stopper attached to a chain
and a bronze ring. The basin emptied through a copper pipe to a trough below. The
pipe was made of 1/16-inch beaten copper to a diameter of a little under 2 inches. A
lap joint seam hammered it tight. Also found within a pyramid temple built by King Tutankhamen's father-in-law at
Abusir, was a brass drain pipe running from the upper temple along the connecting
masonry causeway to the outer temple on the river.
Excavators have discovered a tomb which supposedly contains the body of Osiris
before he became a god. It contains the dividing line between Life and Death, i. e., a
deep moat containing water that surrounds all sides of the figure of the god on his
throne. After 5,000 years, water still fills the canal through underground pipes from
the River Nile.
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Coppersmiths
The ancient Egyptians were early developers of pipe and the
techniques of making copper alloys. In the beginning, of course, their pipe and
fittings were very crude. Like the Mesopotamians, they used clay pipe made from a
combination of straw and clay. First it was dried in the sun, and then baked in ovens.
As they improved upon their clay sewer pipe, the Egyptians were able to drain the
low-lying portions of the Nile Valley, and gradually the entire region evolved into a
fertile garden.It is here in Egypt that the noria, or Egyptian wheel, became a common use. As in
Mesopotamia, it consisted of a chain pump comprising a number of earthen pots
carried round and round by a wheel. The Egyptians were quite skilled in working metals. They melted metal in a crucible
over a super-hot fire, the intense heat provided by men fanning the fire with
blowpipes made of reeds tipped with clay. The molten metal was poured out and
allowed to cool, then beaten out with smooth stones into sheets of the required
thickness. It was then cut to shape. One explanatory picture in a tomb-chapel
describes the process as "causing metal to swim." Other examples of their craftsmanship are found in bowls of beaten copper on which
they casted double spouts. Originally copper basins were used only by the
pharoahs. The homes of the wealthy were airy and roomy, literally. There were bedrooms,
servants' quarters, halls, dining rooms - and bathrooms. Actually, a "bathroom" was
usually a small recessed room with a square slab of limestone in the corner. There
the master of the house stood while his slaves liberally doused him with water. The
waste water ran into a large bowl in the floor below or through an earthenware
channel in the wall where it emptied into still another bowl outside. Then that bowl
was baled out by hand. Remains of early earth closets with limestone seats also have been discovered, the
disposal evidently in the sandy soil. Many other details of Egypt's past are lost in obscurity. But of their engineering skill
there is no doubt. Knowing only the lever, roller, inclined plane and possibly a long
copper saw, they erected immense monuments in the desert sands and along great
cliffs. When anyone reflects on ancient Egypt today, the Great Pyramid of Cheops and its
staggering dimensions invariably are brought to mind: It stands 481 feet high and
contains 2 million blocks of yellowish limestone. Each block weights 2.5 tons, was
quarried miles away, floated on barges and dragged from the shores of the Nile to its
present site.
The other monument of renown is the Sphinx, guardian of the pyramids, which the
ancients carved out of bedrock. It is shaped like a crouching lion with a human head.
Unfortunately it was built before the services of a good Roman plumber were
available. Located outside present-day Cairo, it has lost limestone blocks to the
marauding influence of underground water pollution - caused mainly by nearby
villagers throwing household and human waste out in the street.
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Greece
(Bathtubs Are Born)
Until Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great, rampaged through and
destroyed the city in 432 B.C., Olynthus was a rich and flourishing metropolis, its
people enjoying the luxury of the latest plumbing innovation - bathtubs.
Excavations at Olynthus, in northern Greece, attest to tiled bathrooms and
self-draining tubs. Several of the tubs have survived intact, shaped like present-day
models though with one sloping end cut off. It is assumed that underground piping
was made of since-deteriorated clay, as there was no lead piping found.
At this stage the early plumbers were still toying with a new metal - lead. Indeed
one tub uncovered in a tiled bathroom was repaired with lead clamps.
(Archaeologists also found the skeletal remains of a woman near the tub, her jewelry
evidently overlooked by Philip's soldiers as they plundered the town.)
From the shapes of the ancient tubs uncovered, the bathers apparently sat upright
and rested their feet on a depression formed at the bottom. No doubt they were
influenced by Hippocrates, the "father of medicine," who said that sitting in a tub was
more healthy than reclining. Hippocrates also advocated cold water baths as a cure
for almost any ills. The Greeks followed his advice very carefully. The ancient Greeks set a high standard for themselves in promoting bodily and
mental fitness. This was a concept reflected in their approach to exercise and
cleanliness - having created the Olympic Games in 776 B.C. In any large city from
the seventh century B.C. onwards, one could find a gymnasium that featured hot
and cold shower baths. As using hot water was considered effeminate, a man's bath
typically was a quick douse of cold water over the head. On average, his "tub"
typically was a 30-inch high, polished marble bowl. He probably stood beside it. Private bathrooms, on the other hand, usually contained portable earthenware tubs
for milady, whose taste no doubt demanded warm water for a more relaxing soak. More ritual than hygienic, it was considered good manners for
a host to offer his guest the services of his bathroom after a dusty and arduous
journey. Ah, the joys of being treated by a winsome slave girl as she scraped his skin
of perspiration and dirt with an iron utensil! Ah, the shock when she completed her
work with a good dousing of cold water from an urn setting on a stand nearby! (As a
rule, the Greeks much preferred sponges, oils, scrapers and rinses over the type of
soap available at that time. Perhaps it was no wonder, for Grecian soap was
manufactured from a combination of goat fat and ashes.) Many houses in ancient Greece were equipped with closets or latrines that drained
into a sewer beneath the street. They seemed to have been flushed by waste water.
Some of the sewers were fitted with ventilating shafts. The Greeks gave special protection to their water supplies to ward off severance by
enemy attack. Aqueducts were generally laid underground, sometimes to a depth of
60 feet. Some were broad enough to accommodate two men walking abreast; the
deeper ones connected with the surface through large wells. The city of Athens required many aqueducts to bring water from the mountains. The
people also depended upon deep wells which they laboriously had to dig through
layers of rock to secure. The water supplies were directed to storage cisterns which
in turn fed a multitude of street fountains, some of which are still in use today. Water
porters carried a supply to homes of the well-to-do. To the people of ancient Greece, everything in nature
possessed religious significance. Water especially played a key role in the
development of their culture. For instance, fountains and springs were held to have
certain mystical and medicinal powers which were imbued in a pantheon of gods and
goddesses that the people worshipped.
A free citizen would bathe at three significant times in his life: at birth, marriage and
after death. To assure a long and happy life, for example, a bride would bathe in
water taken from a fountain with nine pipes, called Calirrhoe. In Athens, the Calirrhoe
fountain was also the principal source of water supply, for the most part conveyed by
a conduit which brought the water in from the River Illisius. The Greeks made strong headway in the development of water systems, especially
cold water systems. But it would still remain for others to expand upon their
achievements. In 201 B.C., Carthage would fall to the relentless Roman legions, and
then Macedonia four years later. The ancient Greeks would lose their hold on
themselves and soon their Near East conquests, including Assyria, Judea and
Egypt.
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Jerusalem
(Persistence Pays Off For Plumbing Engineers)
The capital city of the ancient land of Israel is situated 2,500 feet above sea level,
high along a strategic ridge of hills. In the tenth century B.C., Jerusalem would
become a buffer state between the warring factions of Assyria and Egypt, and later
would be influenced by the Macedonian culture of Alexander the Great. By 173
B.C., Jerusalem would look like a Greek city, complete with gymnasiums. When the
Romans took over, they erected elaborate buildings and water systems to
accommodate them. In A.D. 73, they destroyed it all, and Jerusalem lay in ruins.From the city's inception, its lifeline of water depended solely on hidden wells and
underground cisterns. Fed by underground streams, the Gihon Spring on
Jerusalem's eastern slope was the ancient city's only source of water at that end.
Depending on the season, the spring could supply water to the city once or twice a
day for a 30- or 40-minute period of time. The Gihon also irrigated the surrounding
fields and gardens through several open canals along what is known as the Kidron
riverbed.
From the city's earliest settlements even prior to 1200 B.C. water tunnels from the
city tapped into the connection located just outside the city walls. As in other
cultures, access to the water supply had to be insured against enemy invaders who
conceivably could cut off the supply above ground. About the late eighth century B.C., King Hezekiel of Judah authorized the
excavation of a new tunnel even further away to access water to the city, store the
supply in an underground pool, and hide the entrance of the spring. In his attempt
to thwart a possible Assyrian siege of the city, the tunnel would become one of the
earliest examples of daring engineering feats.
It would take two teams of workers six to seven months to literally inch their way
through 765 feet of solid rock. Each team chipped the way to the center from
opposite sides of the hill, extending an aqueduct south of Bethlehem to Jerusalem.
Evidently guided only by water fissure, they laboriously dug out a tunnel about 1
yard in width, and 1 to 3 yards in height. One man would methodically and tediously
hack and chip away, the others behind him passing the broken stones out in
baskets. Chiseled in the rock at the point where the two teams met, archaeologists
have found a Hebrew inscription recounting "the day of the tunnel" in which "the
stone cutters made their way towards one another ax-blow by ax-blow." The tunnel
diverted the exposed spring of Gihon to a concealed point outside Jerusalem's
western wall. For centuries Jerusalem was sparsely inhabited. It began to grow under the Biblical
King David who made the city his capital. By the time his son Solomon was anointed
king in 956 B.C., Jerusalem had become a city of crowded, narrow streets, with
spacious quarters for the royal palaces and related court retinue. The royal garrisons of King Solomon, however, were quartered on the site of
Megiddo (located some 22 miles southeast of present-day Haifa), on the plain of
Armageddon. Megiddo even then was an ancient fortress town, dating back at least
to the 18th century B.C. The royal stables reportedly were outfitted with feeding
troughs for the 492 horses of the king's warrior corps. The early inhabitants initially tried to sink a well shaft within the city walls, straight
down to the water's source, but couldn't. This was still the Bronze Age and their
primitive tools were no match for the hardness of the rock. Instead, they had to dig
vertically and horizontally, first eking out a dark, angular tunnel. The tunnel
descended by a treacherous flight of stone steps hewn from the rock; in essence a
spiral staircase around a 43-foot shaft, down and around to a huge natural cave
outside the walls of the city. At the far end of the 75 feet long by 25 feet high by 15
feet wide cave, the diggers finally tapped the spring whose water still bubbles to this
day.
The ancient Hebrews were among the earliest peoples to
incorporate cleanliness and hygiene into their religious observance and everyday
life. Some attribute Moses' upbringing in an Egyptian royal household for his
emphasis on the purifying aspects of water. Washing, bathing and cleanliness
played a prominent role in the religious rites of the Jews, and indirectly afforded the
people a greater measure of health than enjoyed by most ancient societies.
The earliest recorded sanitary laws concerning disposal of human waste also are
attributed to Moses and his teachings in the Old Testament. Circa 1500 B.C., his
people are instructed to dispose of their waste away from the camp, and to use a
spade to turn the remains under the earth or sand. Of course, in crowded cities,
more ingenuity is required. Jerusalem's water supply and drainage developed in stages from the ancient days,
even prior to the reign of King David in 1055 B.C. Drains were built for removing
sewage from homes and streets, while excess waste and refuse were carted out
through the appropriately-named "Dung Gate" of the city. Because the temples required their own "pure water" arrangements, there were two
separate drain and waste water systems in the city. This was certainly an extra
expense, but the early plumbers developed a conservation system for its reuse.
Sink water was channeled into ponds or large cesspools or directed into a settling
basin. Here the waste materials would be held in suspension and subsequently
used as manure for the fields and croplands. Any surplus water was eventually used
in the cultivation of gardens.
More elaborate sewer systems were found in smaller towns of the region. They
consisted of a trunk line and auxiliary drains underneath the houses. In the courtyard of Solomon's Temple stood what the Old Testament calls a "molten
sea," said to have held 2,000 baths. It was used by the celebrants to wash their
hands and feet before entering the sanctuary. According to one source, the "sea"
or laver was a replica of the apsu, the laver that Babylonian priests used in their
temple rites, except the Babylonian laver was chiseled out of stone. This "molten sea" was a 7-foot high basin of bronze or brass, 15 feet in diameter and
3 inches thick. It rested on the backs of 12 cast-iron oxen which stood in four groups
of three. Biblical scholars calculate the weight of the "sea" alone at 33 tons, an
astounding figure which can never really be proven. The laver was situated close to
the temple's "Water Gate" with a convenient water conduit on the outside of the
complex. When 300 years later the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar ordered Jerusalem
burned and its people deported to Babylonia, the temple was destroyed. It
treasures, including the lavers, were melted down or carted away as tribute.
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Herodian Era
In 38 B.C., Solomon's Temple was rebuilt again, this time by
Herod, Rome's proclaimed king of Judea. He kept faithful to the original plans,
including ritual baths and lavers and an extended courtyard.Herod left his mark on other areas of the land, more notably on Masada, a 1,300-foot
high butte overlooking the Dead Sea. It is here that archaeologists have uncovered
and partially restored his living quarters and administrative palaces. Herod
incorporated the latest of Roman plumbing know-how in his citadel - for Masada is
an isolated fortress of rock sitting in the middle of a desert.
Bringing water to the barren area was a stunning feat by Herod and his engineers.
The water system originated in two small wadis or gullies located some distance
away. Typical in a desert, the wadis quickly flooded with water from sudden,
unpredictable downbursts. To hold the waters until ready for release, the Romans
constructed dams in two paces. On demand, they allowed the water to flow by
gravity through an aqueduct and channels directed to the site.
Herod built another set of cisterns at the top of the citadel and connected them to
conduits to catch rain. But the water supply was a pittance for his two big palaces and
five smaller ones on the rock. Since a ruler such as Herod would not be denied the
same comforts he enjoyed in Jerusalem and his other palaces around the land, he
ordered a human conduit to bring up water from the cisterns far below. Some
estimate a workforce of hundreds, maybe thousands, of slaves and beasts of
burden bearing jars of water for the royal pleasures. Herod designed Masada's northern palace in three tiers. In Roman fashion, it
featured a bathhouse with four rooms: a hot room (caldarium), cold room (frigidarium)
and its small cold water pool, a larger tepid room (tepidarium) and the entrance
(apotyterium) which included dressing rooms. The walls were decorated with
frescoes simulating marble or alabaster walls. The entrance floors were mosaic, later
to be replaced with triangular tiles. A smaller villa featured a swimming pool too.
The caldarium was the largest room, containing below a steam room whose floor
rested upon 200 tiny columns of brick. Perforated clay pipe within the walls carried
the forced hot air generated by an adjacent furnace. The design reportedly
resembles the Roman bathhouses found at Pompeii and Herculaneum. After Herod died, Masada was all but deserted and in disrepair. In A.D. 70 the
fortress became a refuge again, this time for a band of Jewish Zealots fleeing the
Roman soldiers. Girding themselves for a long siege, they settled on the opposite
side of Herod's rundown villas. In addition to carving out living quarters and
storehouses, they built three pools for the ritual baths. In accordance with Jewish
precepts, the mikveh allowed only rainwater and used no metal piping in the
construction. The Roman siege lasted almost three years, the Zealots' water supply still provided
by Herod's cisterns. In A.D. 73 the 960 defenders committed suicide rather than
submit to the final assault of almost 15,000 Roman soldiers.
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Pompeii & Herculaneum
(Roman Spa Towns)
The Roman Empire eventually encompassed all the countries along the
Mediterranean Sea, Mesopotamia, the Balkans, and most of modern Europe,
including Britain. With their plumbing engineers in tow, the Romans left in their wake
large- and small-scale water systems that incorporated similar-style aqueducts, lead
pipes, heated floors, dams and drains. From Rome's Cloaca Maxima, largest of the
ancient sewers, to the famous spas of Aquae Sulis in Bath, England, and the
colossal baths of Emperors Caracalla and Diocletian, the early Roman
plumbers left indelible marks on civilization.In A.D. 79 , Mount Vesuvius erupted and obliterated the ancient Roman resort
towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Beneath the lava ruins rests a frieze-frame of
high-style Roman living, thanks in part to the plumberium. (As followers of our
History of Plumbing series may remember, the word "plumber" is derived from the
Latin term plumbum which means lead. It applied to all workers in lead, those who
made frames for handbags and baskets, and especially the craftsmen who soldered,
installed and repaired pipe whether on roofs and gutters or in sewers and drains.) Since 1758, when excavation began in Pompeii, palaces of the Caesars and private
homes of the nouveau riche merchants and court hangers-on have emerged along
with theaters, dance halls and circuses. In addition, grand-style temples and
amphitheaters were uncovered, along with elaborate public baths for hundreds of
people, and a water supply system for both private and public needs. Water closets were in vogue in Pompeii, and archaeologists have found ancient
closets in the back of one palace, including a cistern to flush water to the different
seats. Near the palace kitchen they also found an arched recess approximately three
feet deep. Although the actual wood had long disappeared, archaeologists say they
could still see outlines of hinges for the privy seats. The kitchen's brick oven sat four feet from the privy. To the efficient Romans who
had no inkling of germs, the proximity allowed the easy disposal of both scraps and
excreta. The women used the privy alongside the kitchen; the men went around to
the back and used their own. Plumbing Galore: The famous Roman aqueducts supplied water to the town, the
pipe used in siphons set in sections of 10 feet. The sections fit into a 1 foot square
block of stone servicing as an elbow, with connecting holes cut into the adjoining
walls. Water flowed continuously into a private home through a nozzle, the homeowner
paying water rates according to the nozzle size. At the reservoir where the service
pipe was attached, engineers installed a kind of ball float, resembling the modern
type, to assure a reasonable steady flow of water. Each length of service pipe carried
the subscriber's name to prevent any unpaying freeloaders from tapping into his
neighbor's pipe. The plumbers of Pompeii had a flourishing trade that included fashioning gutters of
lead for the private homes. A Pompeiian house featured an atrium and open-roof
design. Underneath a tank collected the rainwater which ran down from the roof
tiles.
In Pompeii, this is how the plumber formed pipe: He poured molten lead into various
sheets of thickness and dimension, and allowed them to cool. Then he shaped the
sheets around a core of wood, leaving a V-shaped opening where the ends met. He
fashioned a sand or clay mold around the channel, and poured hot lead into the
opening. Typically the pipe was elliptical, or egg-shaped. According to present-day
experts, the plumberium's efforts were crude, but workable. The plumber made connecting joints in like manner. He flared one end of the pipe
into a cone-like shape, and fit the adjoining piece of lead into it. He soldered the two
pieces together with pure hot lead.
Even Old Roman galleys were outfitted with regular plumbing, especially the ones
used by emperors. It's reported that one old relic may have been used by Emperor
Caligula for pleasure cruises. Expense unspared, it was outfitted with bronze pipe
and ornaments, with running water provided in the lavish cabins. The Roman Bath: A Roman bath in today's connotation is a luxury affair - an
appropriate term. Between the public baths and homes of the patricians, the
plumbers of Pompeii has no trouble staying busy. There was a steady demand for
lead pipes, wiped joints and bronze valves and opulent fixtures of marble, gold and
silver. A bath room of the wealthy literally was a room with a pool of water filling up the entire
floor, in essence a small swimming pool in present-day terms. The walls were lined
with marble and complemented the three or four marble steps leading down to the
submerged concrete floor.
Comfort the key, both the water and the air were heated at the same time to a
desired temperature, the heat regulated by using a type of damper system. The
entire floor rested on piers of bricks which drew hot air from an adjacent furnace. The
walls also were interfaced with hollow terra cotta tiles on all sides to draw the heat
through. Frequently the bath had a plug so the water could be emptied - maybe twice,
maybe once or not at all - during the day. The pipes might either be lead or, more
typically, tiles buried in the ground. Usually planted a foot or more under a very solid
concrete floor, they were built to last. Rome's public baths featured silver faucets, and there is no reason to assume
otherwise in Pompeii. Luxury plumbing also featured four-branch fittings or crosses,
brass stop cocks, wipe joints and individual-size bronze bath tubs. Archaeologists uncovered a bath complex in Pompeii measuring nearly one mile
around, said to be "hardly second to the amphitheaters." The baths contained an
undressing room and separate rooms for cold water baths, a steam bath and a tepid
room. Style That Counts: Herculaneum catered to the richest of the rich and the most
powerful, a resort even more expensive than the goings-on in Pompeii. The
beautiful mosaics in the women's bath and frescoes on the walls reportedly were
superior to those of Pompeii. In general, a Roman public bath was like a county club. For a small sum, it was a place
to meet friends, go to the gym, play a few games, have a good meal and spend a bit
of time in a succession of cold, tepid, warm or hot baths. This was the idea concept
at the beginning.
In the time of Julius Caesar (100-44 B.C.), the Romans were conservative in the
attitudes toward women in the bath houses. Mixed bathing was prohibited, and
there were separate baths for the men and women, and set hours for each. They
bathed au naturel, except a woman might wear a cap to protect her hair or a string of
pearls around her neck. The rules changed later on and both sexes were allowed to bathe together, again
without bathing suits. However, Rule One said "don't stare," and Rule Two insisted
on behaving as if one were fully dressed. Break the rules, and out you go. A final
humiliation would be the denial of admission. As Rome declined, the baths
degenerated likewise into places of debauchery and orgies.
The ancient Roman spas will always be associated with opulent luxury and a style of
living that awed even its own people. Seneca, the Roman Stoic philosopher, visited
Herculaneum several times. These visits no doubt helped inspire these perceptive
words: "We think ourselves poor and mean if our walls (of the baths) are not
resplendent with large and costly mirrors; if our marbles (statues and busts) are not
set off by mosaics of Numidian stone, of their borders are not faced over on all sides
with difficult patterns, arranged in many colors like paintings; if our vaulted ceilings
are not buried in glass; if our swimming pools are not lined with Thasian marble, once
a rare and wonderful sight in any temple; and finally, if the water has not poured from
silver spigots."
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