Archaeologists have unearthed the bottom half of a manual flush toilet that dates back 2,400 years in the Yueyang archaeological site in China’s Shaanxi province. Yueyang served as a capital city under multiple ancient Chinese dynasties. It will likely reveal a lot about the eating habits of ancient people by analyzing soil samples taken from the toilet bowl.
This was not just the layman’s toilet, but rather, believed to have been used by high-ranking members of society, such as Qin Xiaogong (381-338 BC) or his father Qin Xian’gong (424-362 BC), during the Warring States Period (475-221 BC), or by Liu Bang (206 BC-AD 220), the first emperor of the Han Dynasty! The upper half of the toilet has not been found, so researchers are not sure if its users squatted or sat.
Support authors and subscribe to content
This is premium stuff. Subscribe to read the entire article.
