It was the Qin Dynasty that, more than 2,000 years ago, managed to unify China in 221 BC. and thus end centuries of warfare, in what is traditionally known as the Warring States period. Yueyang was the capital of the Qin kingdom for about 35 years and was also the main city of the Han dynasty, during which palaces were demolished to make way for farmland.
In the midst of one of the great palaces built in that distant era, now buried under modern Xi'an, in Shaanxi province, researchers from the Chinese Institute of Archeology discovered an extraordinary object last summer: a flushing toilet. Just like the ones we use today.
This evidence, which has taken months of reconstruction work, has completely broken everything that was thought until now. Until now, history determined that the first modern flush toilet was not invented until 1596 by Sir John Harington, an English courtier and godson of Queen Elizabeth I of England who is also an ancestor of Kit Harington, the actor who He gave life to John Snow in Game of Thrones.
Primitive latrines using a constant flow of water to remove waste date back at least 5,000 years and several ancient civilizations, including the Roman and the Mohenjo-Dara and Harappan of the Indus Valley, are known to have used the earliest latrine systems. .
The peculiarity of flush toilets is that they have a tank that has a shutter that obstructs the passage of water until it is activated through a mechanism (a chain or a handle, for example). Clearly, two millennia ago, such a device was only used by the highest ranking members.
Chinese archaeologists believe that this outhouse so far ahead of its time would have been used by Qin Xiaogong himself (381-338 BC), who turned the peripheral Qin state into a powerful military kingdom, or by his father Qin Xian'gong ( 424-362 BCE) . Perhaps it was even used by Liu Bang, the first emperor of the Han dynasty (256-195 BC).
The palace where this modern toilet was located was possibly used for administrative matters. The cup was placed inside the building, hooked to a pipe that led to an open-air sewage pit. Experts believe that it was the servants who probably poured water into the bath every time it was used.
"This is the first and only flush toilet to be discovered in China. Everyone at the site was shocked when we found it and then burst out laughing," said Liu Rui, a member of the Chinese Academy's Institute of Archaeology. of Social Sciences.
In the case of Harington's device, it would not develop until many centuries later, it required an oval container half a meter deep waterproofed with pitch, resin and wax and fed with water from a cistern located above. The flush required about 28 liters of water.
It wasn't until the late 19th century that a London businessman named Thomas Crapper manufactured one of the first lines of flush toilets, a development that met with great success. Crapper developed the ballcock, an improved tank-filling mechanism in stills still in use today.
Liu Riu and his team have completely excavated the two palatial buildings in the central area of the ancient capital which they have named three and eleven. Both face south and are rectangular in shape. Among the finds was a large half-circle mosaic commonly known as the "King of Watang".
The toilet was incomplete and therefore the researchers cannot determine if its users could sit up or crouched down to relieve themselves. Some earlier records, such as the stone carvings in the tombs of royal members of the Western Han Dynasty, are likely to have squatted on it.
"The flush toilet is concrete proof of the importance ancient Chinese attached to sanitation," Liu says. Archaeologists are now analyzing the soil inside in the hope of finding traces of human feces and learning more about the eating habits of this society.
