Strata: Then and Now: Luxurious Lavatories

In Mesopotamia, as in most of the ancient world, the more money you had, the more luxurious your house and lifestyle could be. This applied to the toilet as well. As early as the third millennium B.C.E., royal palaces and the homes of the elite had indoor lavatories, which consisted of a seat placed over a terracotta drainage pipe. The pipe would carry human waste out of the house through an ingenious system of drains that ran under the streets—similar to modern sewers. Lavatories such as this were never experienced by the ordinary person, who did not even have access to public latrines. The masses were left to their own devices and would typically leave the city and create their own cesspits in orchards or fields.

Centuries later, the situation for Israelites was very similar to that of the ancient Mesopotamians. Two latrines discovered in the City of David excavations in Jerusalem reveal the wealthy had access to their own private toilets. Dating to the time just before Jerusalem fell to Nebuchadnezzar (586 B.C.E.), these facilities were intended to serve both men and women and involved a single slab of local limestone with two holes—one for defecation, one for male urination—placed over a cesspit lined with plaster. Again, as in Mesopotamia, the average person would not have had access to this type of luxury and would have had to make do with areas outside of the city.