Gothic War

The Plumbing of Babylon

If you compare the plumbing of Babylon with the plumbing of any other city of the same time it was far ahead in technology. The irrigation system was very well designed, and the city its self was well spotted out and planned. The city lies right by the Euphrates River. All the streets in the city ran straight into the river. Therefore, when it rained the water would not sit in the streets but it would run straight down into the river.

The bathrooms in the palaces of the wealthy people were very advanced. Typically, a bathroom of the wealthy was a pretty good sized room that measured about 15 square feet, and were always built at the south end of the house. The lower part of the bathroom walls 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. The Babylonian canals were the most advanced of the culture. They had canals running through the city and they had people supervising them. The canals were clear of weeds and the banks were made to prevent flooding.

Nebuchadnezzar's palace is an example of how fresh water was obtained from wells in a plumbing system that required human slavery to work. The well had three shafts with the center shaft shaped as a square and the other two shafts were oblong. A wheel and chain apparatus using pottery buckets ran along the oblong shafts. The center shaft was used for clearing the well of debris and maintaining the chain and bucket apparatus. The power needed to run the apparatus was supplied by human slaves. Similar wells are still used in modern times but the power is supplied by animals.

A very early version of the toilet was found in the Palace of Sargon the Great. The toilets had high seats similar to modern latrines that emptied into