The unearthed toilet, consisting of a bowl and a drainage system, excavated at the Yueyang site in Xi'an, China.
Credit: Xinhua/Shutterstock
Hong Kong (CNN) --
Archaeologists in China have discovered the remains of what may be the world's oldest flush toilet.
According to Chinese state media, a research team unearthed broken parts of a 2,400-year-old toilet last summer, as well as a bent flush pipe, among the ruins of an ancient palace at the Yueyang archaeological site in China. Xian city.
Details of the find emerged last week and have aroused great interest in China, offering a rare glimpse into the privileged and competitively advanced world of the former ruling elite.
The toilet, described by investigators as a "luxury item," is believed to have been located inside the palace, with a pipe leading to an outside well, according to the state-run China Daily
.
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Liu Rui, a researcher at the Institute of Archeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, who was part of the excavation team, told state media that the toilet was likely reserved for high-ranking officials during the Warring States period (475 -221 BC) and the subsequent Han dynasty (206 BC-AD 220).
He added that the servants probably poured water into the cup each time it was used.
"The flush toilet is a concrete proof of the importance ancient Chinese attached to sanitation," Liu said, adding that there were very few records of indoor toilets in ancient times.
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Access to clean, flushed toilets remains a problem in parts of China today.
Early in his term, China's leader Xi Jinping vowed to "revolutionize" the country's toilets as part of efforts to improve rural hygiene.
"The toilet issue is no small matter, it is an important aspect of building civilized cities and countryside," Xi said in an article published in the People's Daily in 2018. "This work should be advanced as a specific task of the rural revitalization and such deficiencies that affect people's quality of life must be remedied with great efforts".
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Prior to this discovery, the invention of the first flush toilet was widely credited to English courtier John Harington, who reputedly installed one for Queen Elizabeth in the 16th century, although 4,000-year-old drainage systems have been found in northwestern India. old that could have been connected to toilets.
The ruins of Yueyang, the former capital of the State of Qin and later the first capital of the Han dynasty, were discovered in the 1980s. The recent find is part of a broader effort to understand ancient Chinese dynasties, including how they people lived and how their cities were built, the institute said in a statement announcing the discoveries.
Archaeologists will analyze soil samples collected from the toilet in the hope of finding out what people ate at that time, according to
China Daily
.
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