Urban sewer system and flush latrine

What it is

Network of covered, fired-brick drains, with inspection points and settling pits, that collected water from baths and latrines in almost every dwelling. No other urban system reached that coverage until imperial Rome.

Flush latrines also occur at Eshnunna (Tell Asmar, c. 2500 BCE) and Minoan palaces (Knossos, c. 1700 BCE), but without the Indus's domestic coverage.

What it led to

• Cities of tens of thousands of inhabitants with reduced epidemic mortality
• Urban regulations: alignments, gradients and communal maintenance of infrastructure
• Universal domestic hygiene, not reserved to the palace, a distinctive feature of the Indus civilisation

Built on

• Grid-planned cityc. 2600 BCE
• Standardized fired brickc. 2600 BCE
• Urban drainage

Made possible

• Public bath (Great Bath)c. 2500 BCE
• Cloaca Maxima (urban sewer)c. 600 BCE
• Toilet paper589 CE
• Septic tank (Mouras)1860 (divulgada en 1881)
• Cloaca Maxima (much later)
• Minoan running-water latrine

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