Proper sanitation is an important factor in any city in order to address
the
problems of health and sanitation. These
issues were also important in the ancient world. The ancient Egyptians
practiced sanitation, but in the widest sense of the word as modern
technologies were not available to them. The degree of sanitation available to
certain individuals varied according to their social status.
Where did ancient Egyptians relieve themselves? If they had the means, bathrooms were built right in their homes. There is evidence that in the New Kingdom the gentry had small bathrooms in their homes. In the larger homes next to the master bedroom there was a bathroom that consisted of a shallow stone tub that the person stood in and had water poured over him. There is no evidence that the common people had bathrooms in their homes.
In modern society a sanitation company picks up our weekly refuse. In ancient Egyptian, it was the responsibility of each household to dispose of their garbage at the communal dump - the irrigation canals. As a result, these dump canals were breeding grounds for vermin and disease. Some homes in the cities may have had trays of earth for drainage and disposal of waste. For the most part, however, ancient Egyptians simply dumped their waste in canals or open fields.
Water is an important part of any
sanitation process and the ancient Egyptians
had plenty of water from the mighty Nile
River and the irrigation systems built from it. Gathering water for individual
homes was done by groups of women. The women went to the river or canal to get
the water while the men actually worked in groups doing the laundry. The canals
and river were also used by the common people for bathing purposes.
The sanitation methods of the ancient Egyptians may seem crude when compared to the modern conveniences available in the 21st century. They did have what appears to have been a workable, viable sanitation system.
Andreu, Guillemette. Egypt: In the Age of the Pyramids. London: Cornell University Press, 1997.
Geddes and Grosset, ed. Ancient Egypt: Myth and History. New Lanark, Scotland: David Dale House, 1997.
Guillemette Andreu, Egypt: In the Age of the Pyramids (London: Cornell University Press, 1997), 86.
Jared Brent Krebsbach
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