Archaeological
evidence suggests 5,000-yearold bathing facilities in Gaza. Soaplike material found
in clay jars of Babylonian origin has been dated to about 2800 B.C. From before
the time of Abraham in Middle Eastern desert climes, custom dictated that hosts
offer washing water to dusty-footed guests. But one of the first known and indisputable
bathtubs comes from Minoan Crete. Supposedly built for the legendary King Minos
around 1700 B.C. and found in the great palace at Knossos, it's of a shape similar
to modern tubs. Even more impressive is the palace plumbing system that served
the royal tub. Interlocking pieces of terra-cotta pipes-each tapered at one end
to give water a shooting action to prevent the buildup of clogging sediment -- were
jointed and cemented together. Their technology put Minoans in the hydrological
vanguard.
Egyptians
Although
the ancient Egyptians didn't develop such plumbing, they had a penchant for
hygiene, evident in their use of fresh linens and body ointments, skin conditioners
and deodorants of the day. As described in the 1500 B.C. Ebers Papyrus, these
ancients washed, and treated skin diseases with a soapy material made of animal
and vegetable oils and alkaline salts. From bas-reliefs and tomb excavations, there's
evidence that Egyptians sat in a shallow kind of shower bath while attendants poured
water over the bather.
Of
course, Egyptians also cleansed themselves in the Nile. There, while bathing one
day, a Pharaoh's daughter espied a small basket made of rushes, snagged in reeds
along the water's edge. In it was a baby boy who grew up to be a rather notable
leader and lawgiver. A savant of sanitation, Moses issued cleanliness criteria
as well as moral precepts. As a sign of religious purification -- and to be
ready to hear the word of Jehovah -- he ordered his Hebrew followers to wash their
clothing. Before approaching a tabernacle, priests had to wash their hands and feet
in a brass laver. But more than religion was involved here; Moses surely recognized
the detrimental impact of filth upon the health of his wandering tribe. To him,
a lack of cleanliness was “catching," in that it could pass on disease. Lepers
were forced to announce their approach by shouting, "Unclean, unclean!"
Greeks
The Greeks
certainly were not unclean, and in fact prized cleanliness. Although they
apparently did not use soap, Greeks anointed their bodies with oil and ashes,
scrubbed with blocks of pumice or sand, and scraped themselves clean with a curved metal instrument called
a strigil. Immersion in water and anointment with olive oil followed.
Homer makes
frequent references to private Grecian baths: shallow vessels into which heated
water was poured, often for the pleasure of guests. Public baths that offered a
shower, a plunge, or a hot-air room known as a laconicum usually served as
an adjunct to a gymnasium. But the Greeks rarely luxuriated in water: cleanliness
was prized; indulgence wasn't. Demosthenes once complained about sailors who avoided
work by "washing all the time."
Romans
At its peak
of ablutionary excess, it may have seemed that all of Rome indulged in the baths.
In the 4th century A.D., the city sported 11 large and magnificent public bathhouses,
more than 1,350 public fountains and cisterns, and many hundreds of private
baths. Served by 13 aqueducts, Rome's per-capita daily water consumption averaged
about 300 gallons (1,130 liters), nearly the amount that an American family of four
uses today.
As Lawrence
Wright wrote in his 1960 book Clean and Decent, the Roman public bath "was
the focus of communal life. Bathing was a basic social duty. The highest architectural
and constructional skills were devoted to its setting. "Yet in the early days
of the republic, noted Seneca, Romans purified themselves once a week at most. Citizens
then began to frequent the balneum, a small bathhouse not unlike a local
bar. In 25 B.C., Agrippa, chief deputy to Emperor Augustus, designed and built
the first thermae, larger and more elaborate facilities. They triggered a
golden age of bathing.
Subsequent
emperors commissioned increasingly grand thermae, complexes that included restaurants
and areas devoted to sports, theater, music, and even sleeping quarters. Either
free or charging a nominal fee, the subsidized bath could boost a ruler's
popularity. Emperor Caracalla's bath, notes Wright, covered an area six times
larger than St. Paul's Cathedral in London and could accommodate 1,600 bathers
at a time. Finished in A.D. 305, the baths of Emperor Diocletian entertained
crowds of more than 3,000 in marble splendor, beneath high vaulted ceilings. Thanks
to Michelangelo's restoration, part of the structure is still being used as a
church.
Baths
usually opened at midday, just as sportsmen finished games or exercise. A bather
first entered the tepidarium, a moderately warm room for sweating and lingering.
The wealthy man brought slaves to anoint his body with fine oils, some of which
included sand to help remove dirt. Poor folk scrubbed themselves with
inexpensive lentil flour.
Next
came the calidarium, a hotter room for greater sweating, or perhaps the ultra-hot
laconicum. In these the bather doused himself with copious quantities of warm, tepid,
or cold water. Scraped off with a strigil, sponged, and re-anointed , the Roman
concluded the process by plunging into the cool and refreshing pool of the frigidarium.
In the early
years of thermae, the sexes didn't mix. Notes Wright: "No respectable matron
would go to the baths at all." In Pompeii, men and women had separate
facilities. But in Rome, baths eventually became seminaria venenata, or hotbeds
of promiscuity and vice; some were adjuncts to brothels. Rome's obsession with
bathing is said to be a factor that helped send the empire down the drain.
So, too,
went hygiene. "The fathers of the early church equated bodily cleanliness
with the luxuries, paganism, and what's been called 'the monstrous sensualities'
of Rome," explains Professor Greene. Within a few centuries, the public
and private sanitation practices of Greece and Rome were forgotten. Or, as Greene
adds, were "deliberately repressed." Europe during the Middle Ages, it's
often been said, went 1,000 years without a bath.
However,
Gregory the Great, the first monk to become pope, allowed Sunday baths and even
commended them, so long as they didn't become a "time-wasting
luxury." Given his background, it's natural that Gregory wouldn't oppose hygiene.
Guardians of culture and knowledge during the Dark Ages, Europe's monasteries
also preserved some of Rome's hydrological technology and cleanliness habits.
(Funk
& Wagnalls new Encyclopedia of Science Year Book)
