Ancient toilet from 1st Temple era reveals: Poor sanitary conditions caused Jerusalem’s elite to suffer diseases

Here the Kohen shall administer the curse of adjuration to the woman, as the Kohen goes on to say to the woman—“may Hashem make you a curse and an imprecation among your people, as Hashem causes your thigh to sag and your belly to distend.

Numbers

5:

21

(the israel bible)

January 4, 2022

4 min read

There were luxurious villas in Jerusalem at the time of the First Temple, just as there are today. However, unlike those that can be seen in Israel’s capital today, these 2,700-year-old private homes were not healthful places to live. 

 

The remains of intestinal parasite eggs have been discovered in a cesspit beneath the toilet in the garden of a luxury estate uncovered at southern Jerusalem’s Armon Hanatziv Promenade overlooking the Old City and the Temple Mount. 

 

The researchers at Tel Aviv University (TAU) and the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) maintain that these intestinal parasites resulted from poor hygiene and sanitary conditions that led to illness with symptoms including abdominal pain and diarrhea, perhaps even malnutrition and developmental delays in children.

The stone toilet seat found during the 2019 excavation at Armon Hanatziv.
(Photo by Ya’akov Billig)

A new study has exposed the remains of 2,700-year-old intestinal worm eggs below the stone toilet of a magnificent private estate. The egg remnants belong to four different types of intestinal parasites –

roundworm, tapeworm, whipworm and pinworm. According to the researchers, the stone toilet seat was in the estate’s “restroom,” and the presence of the worms indicates that even the wealthy residents of Jerusalem at that time suffered from diseases and epidemics. The article was recently published in the International Journal of Paleopathology under the title “Mid-7th century BCE human parasite remains from Jerusalem.” 

 

The study was led by Dr. Dafna Langgut of TAU’s department of archaeology and ancient Near Eastern Cultures, director of the Laboratory of Archaeobotany and Ancient Environments at the Nadler Institute of Archaeology and the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History. 

 

Langgut collected sediment samples from underneath the stone toilet, where the cesspit was located. Next, in her laboratory, she chemically extracted the parasite eggs, scrutinized them under a light microscope, and identified them. The egg remains were discovered as part of a salvage excavation by the IAA, recently carried out at the Armon Hanatziv Promenade in Jerusalem, funded by the City of David Foundation.

 

“The findings of this study are among the earliest observed in Israel to date,” said Langgut. “These are durable eggs, and under the special conditions provided by the cesspit, they survived for nearly 2,700 years. Intestinal worms are parasites that cause symptoms like abdominal pain, nausea, diarrhea and itching. Some of them are especially dangerous for children and can lead to malnutrition, developmental delays, nervous system damage and, in extreme cases, even death.” She noted that the eggs of some parasite taxa are less durable, so may theoretically be absent due to selective preservation.

 

She believes that intestinal disease at the time might have been caused by poor sanitary conditions that resulted in fecal contamination of food and drinking water – or it might have been due to a lack of hygiene awareness such as a failure to wash hands. Other possible sources of infection were the use of human feces to fertilize field crops and the consumption of improperly cooked beef or pork. 

 

In the absence of medicine, recovery from intestinal worms was difficult to impossible, and those infected could suffer from the parasites for the rest of their lives. Therefore, it is quite possible that the findings of the study indicate a bothersome and long-lasting infectious disease (comparable to lice and pinworms in today’s kindergartens of today) that affected the entire population. Langgut also pointed out that these parasites still exist today, but the modern Western world has developed effective diagnostic means and medications so they don’t turn into an epidemic.

 

Ya’akov Billig, the director of the excavation on behalf of the IAA, explained that the uncovered royal estate dates back to the mid-7th century BCE (the late Iron Age). According to Billig, magnificent stone artifacts of extraordinary workmanship were found at the site, such as decorated stone capitals (in the Proto-Aeolian style) of a quantity and quality not yet observed in ancient Israel. Adjacent to the mansion was a spectacular garden with a breathtaking view of the City of David and the Temple Mount. It was here, along with the remains of fruit and ornamental trees, that the cesspit sampled by Langgut was found. It was capped by a square limestone installation with a hole in its center, identified as a toilet’s drop hole.

 

For Langgut, this was an opportunity to apply a field of research called archeoparasitology that she had begun to develop in her lab. In this field, researchers identify microscopic remains of intestinal worm eggs to learn about the history of diseases and epidemics and obtain new information about human hygiene, lifestyle and sanitary conditions.

 

Langgut and Billig were not surprised by the recovery of a toilet in the estate’s prestigious garden. “Toilet facilities were extremely rare at that time and were a status symbol – a luxury facility that only the rich and high-ranking could afford. As the Talmud teaches, ‘Who is wealthy?… Rabbi Yosef says: Anyone who has a bathroom close to his table.’” (Bavli Shabbat 25: 2).

Dr. Dafna Langgut at the Laboratory of Archaeobotany and Ancient Environments. (Photo by Sasha Flit.)

According to IAA director Eli Escozido, “The research conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority and our partners manages to touch on the finest details of everyday life in antiquity; thanks to advanced equipment and fruitful collaboration with complementary research institutions, it is now possible to extract fascinating information from materials that we previously didn’t have the tools to handle scientifically. Today, archeological research is reaching remarkable achievements and leading to a better understanding of past lifeways – an understanding, it seems, that will only continue to evolve.”

 

“Studies like this one help us document the history of infectious diseases in our area and provide us with a window into the lives of people in ancient times,” concluded Langgut, who is currently conducting additional analyses on the sediments collected from the cesspit to learn about the diet and medicinal herbs used in Jerusalem in the late Iron Age.

 

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