Terracotta pressure pipes and flushing toilet
Tuberías de terracota a presión y retrete con agua corriente
- Date
- c. 1700 BCE · confidence high
- Place
- Knossos, Crete, Greece
- Credited to
- Minoans
- Field
- Tools
What it is
Sections of interlocking, sealed conical terracotta pipe that carry water from the aqueduct to the palace with enough pressure to supply baths, and a seated toilet with water flushing in the royal apartments. The most advanced palatial hydraulic system of the European Bronze Age.
The Indus had earlier flush latrines (c. 2500 BCE), but no pressurised pipes or controlled water flushing.
What it led to
- Hydraulic comfort as an attribute of the palace and the elite
- Closed-conduit engineering, the basis of later Greek and Roman aqueducts and plumbing
- Separate management of clean, rain and waste water within a single building
Built on
Made possible
- Terracotta bathtubc. 1700 BCE
- Pressurised aqueduct
- Roman plumbing
- Water closet