When was indoor plumbing invented?

Answer

Since there are so many different advances in "indoor plumbing" recorded from many time periods it is hard to be precise.

I found this webiste to be of much help.

http://www.theplumber.com/H_index.html

Hope this helps to answer.

-JRB-

Answer

The earliest identifiable flushing toilets have been found in the ruins of the palace of King Minos on the island of Crete, circa 1500 B.C. Rain water or water from cisterns traveled though conduits built into the wall to flush away the waste from a master bathroom presumably belonging to the monarch, as well as several other toilets located within palace walls.

Ruins of homes in ancient Egypt display small private, detached rooms presumably used as privies. Waste apparently was carried away by water running through man-made channels from nearby rivers.

It was left to the classical Greek and Roman civilizations to bring a degree of sanitation to the masses, or at least the upper middle classes. Excavations at Olynthus in northern Greece, destroyed by Philip of Macedon in 432 B.C., attest to tiled bathrooms and self-draining tubs. Their underground piping has disappeared, suggesting it was constructed of primitive clay and straw. However, one uncovered tub was repaired with lead clamps, hinting that Greek plumbers had begun at least toying with this new material. Bathing in ancient Greece was related more to quackery than sanitation. Hippocrates, the “Father of Medicine,” advocated cold water baths as a cure for almost any ill. Using hot water was considered effeminate, which was fine with milady, as evidenced by portable earthenware tubs for warm water soaking.

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, and some of the sewers were fitted with ventilating shafts. The Greeks were careful to safeguard their water supplies against enemy attacks. Aqueducts generally were laid underground up to a depth of 60 feet. Water supplies were directed to storage cisterns that fed into a multitude of street fountains, some of which are still in use today.

No society of old advanced plumbing technology as much as the Roman Empire. As long ago as 800 B.C. the Romans built enormous sewers to drain waste from the city. The Cloaca Maxima was Imperial Rome’s main drainage trunk. Amazingly, it remains in use today as part of modern Rome’s drainage system. Public lavatories date back just as far, with water constantly running beneath the latrines to wash the waste into Rome’s sewer system.

A little later came their great aqueducts that still stand in parts of Italy, France and Spain. Some were still in use until recent times. They are among the most imposing Roman engineering achievements, bringing water from mountain streams as far as 50 miles away, sometimes channeling underground, sometimes rising on piers. I recently watched a series about the Roman Empire on The Learning Channel, which reported that the volume of water transported to Rome back in imperial times was not surpassed by that city until the 1950s.

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