history – Page 2 – One Foot in the Mudd

The History of the Toilet

Yes, the topic is rather shocking, but it was fascinating to read the evolution of the toilet. This lead to the development of plumbing technologies. The smithsonian has a very interesting article about this – where they have gone into details about the evolution of the “throne room” from medieval times to the present. Toilets were seats actually meant for kings. How very interesting.

King Minos of Crete had the first flushing water closet recorded in history and that was over 2,800 years ago.
A toilet was discovered in the tomb of a Chinese king of the Western Han Dynasty that dates back to somewhere between 206 BC to 24 AD.
The ancient Romans had a system of sewers. They built simple outhouses or latrines directly over the running waters of the sewers that poured into the Tiber River.
Chamber pots were used during the middle ages. A chamber pot is a special metal or ceramic bowl that you used and then tossed the contents out (often out the window).
In 1596, a flush toilet was invented and built for Queen Elizabeth I by her Godson, Sir John Harrington.
The first patent for the flushing toilet was issued to Alexander Cummings in 1775.
During the 1800s, people would come to realize that poor sanitary conditions caused diseases. Thus having toilets and sewer systems that could control human waste became a priority to lawmakers, medical experts, inventors as well as the general public.

In 1829, the Tremont Hotel of Boston became the first hotel to have indoor plumbing with eight water closets built by Isaiah Rogers. Until 1840, indoor plumbing could be found only in the homes of the rich and the better hotels.
Beginning in 1910, toilet designs started moving away from the elevated water tank system and more toward a modern toilet with a close tank and bowl setup.

In a catalog assembled for the 2014 Venice Biennale to accompany an exhibition on architectural elements, the bathroom is referred to as “the architectural space in which bodies are replenished, inspected, and cultivated, and where one is left alone for private reflection – to develop and affirm identity.” I think that means it’s where you watch yourself crying in the mirror. As for the toilet specifically, Biennale curator Rem Koolhaas and his researchers, consider it to be the “ultimate” architectural element, “the fundamental zone of interaction–on the most intimate level–between humans and architecture.” So the next time that burrito doesn’t sit right or you had one too many gin and tonics, remember that you’re experiencing a corporeal union with the mother of all arts. Potty humor aside, the privatization and proliferation of the bathroom has really driven new developments in cleanliness and safety and has shaped our buildings.

The flush toilet was invented in 1596 but didn’t become widespread until 1851. Before that, the “toilet” was a motley collection of communal outhouses, chamber pots and holes in the ground. During the 11th-century castle-building boom, chamber pots were supplemented with toilets that were, for the first time, actually integrated into the architecture. These early bathrooms, known as “garderobes” were little more than continuous niches that ran vertically down to the ground, but they soon evolved into small rooms that protruded from castle walls as distinct bottomless bays (such a toilet was the setting for a pivotal scene in the season finale of “Game of Thrones”). “Garderrobe” is both a euphemism for a closet as well as a quite literal appellation, as historian Dan Snow notes: “The name garderobe – which translates as guarding one’s robes – is thought to come from hanging your clothes in the toilet shaft, as the ammonia from the urine would kill the fleas.”

Though it might be named for a closet, the garderrobe actually had a strong resemblance to an aspect of a castle’s defenses. And it works in the same basic way: gravity. And while the garderobe was actually a weak spot in a castle’s defenses, woe be the unassuming invader scaling a castle wall beneath one. Several designs emerged to solve the problem of vertical waste disposal – some spiral up towers, for example, while some were entire towers; some dropped waste into cesspools, moats, and some just dropped it onto the ground below. Not all medieval compounds were okay with merely dumping excrement onto the ground like so much hot oil. Christchurch monastery (1167) has an elaborate sewage system that separates running water, rain drainage, and waste, which can be seen marked in red seen in the below drawing, which has to be the most beautiful plumbing diagram I have ever seen:

Today, the toilet has been upgraded from architectural polyp to a central design element. A long time ago, when I had dreams of becoming an architect, I was designing a house for a client who wanted to see the television from the toilet and tub but did not want a television in the bathroom. The entire master suite, and thus a large percentage of the building’s second floor, was designed around seeing the views from the bathroom. And that was the second residence in my short career that began with the bathroom. More commonly though, toilets shape the spaces of our skyscrapers.

Because we can’t simply drop our waste 800 feet off the side of a skyscraper onto a busy metropolitan sidewalk, and because efficient plumbing depends on stacking fixtures that share a common “wet wall,” toilets (and elevators, of course) are the only elements drawn in the plans for high-rise buildings, whose repeating floor slabs are built out later according to a tenant’s needs. Once relegated to the periphery, the toilet is a now an oasis at the center of our busylives, a place where, as Koolhaas wrote, “one is left alone for private reflection – to develop and affirm identity.” To paraphrase Winston Churchill, we shaped our toilets, then our toilet shapes us.

Plumbing comes from the Latin word for lead, which is plumbum. Plumbing by definition is a utility that we use in our buildings consisting of the pipes and fixtures for the distribution of water or gas and for the disposal of sewage. The word sewer comes from the French word essouier, meaning “to drain.”

But how did plumbing systems come together? Surely it didn’t happen at once, right? Of course not. Let’s go over the main fixtures of modern day plumbing systems. These include toilets, bathtubs and showers and water fountains.

Let There Be Water Fountains

The modern drinking fountain was invented and then manufactured in the early 1900s by two men and the respective company each man founded. Halsey Willard Taylor and the Halsey Taylor Company along with Luther Haws and the Haws Sanitary Drinking Faucet Co were the two companies that changed how water was served in public places.

Taylor’s interest in developing a fountain for drinking water began when his father died of typhoid fever caused by contaminated public drinking water. His father’s death was traumatic and motivated him to invent a water fountain to provide safer drinking water.

Meanwhile, Haws was a part-time plumber, sheet metal contractor and the sanitary inspector for the city of Berkeley in California. While inspecting a public school, Haws saw children drinking water out of a common tin cup that was tied to the faucet. Because of this he feared that there was a health hazard in the making because of the way the public was sharing their water supply.

Haws invented the first faucet designed for drinking. He used spare plumbing parts, such as taking the ball from a brass bedstead and a self-closing rabbit ear valve. The Berkeley school department installed the first model drinking faucets.

https://www.thoughtco.com/history-of-plumbing-1992310

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/turrets-toilets-partial-history-throne-room-180951788/

History of Banking

The history of banking began with the first prototype banks which were the merchants of the world, who made grain loans to farmers and traders who carried goods between cities. This was around 2000 BC in Assyria, India and Sumeria. Later, in ancient Greece and during the Roman Empire, lenders based in temples made loans, while accepting deposits and performing the change of money. Archaeology from this period in ancient China and India also shows evidence of money lending.

Many histories position the crucial historical development of a banking system to medieval and Renaissance Italy and particularly the affluent cities of Florence, Venice and Genoa. The Bardi and Peruzzi Families dominated banking in 14th century Florence, establishing branches in many other parts of Europe.^[1] The most famous Italian bank was the Medici bank, established by Giovanni Medici in 1397.^[2] The oldest bank still in existence is Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, headquartered in Siena, Italy, which has been operating continuously since 1472.^[3]

Development of banking spread from northern Italy throughout the Holy Roman Empire, and in the 15th and 16th century to northern Europe. This was followed by a number of important innovations that took place in Amsterdam during the Dutch Republic in the 17th century, and in London since the 18th century. During the 20th century, developments in telecommunications and computing caused major changes to banks’ operations and let banks dramatically increase in size and geographic spread. The financial crisis of 2007–2008 caused many bank failures, including some of the world’s largest banks, and provoked much debate about bank regulation.

Earliest forms of banking

Asia

Mesopotamia and Persia

Banking as an archaic activity (or quasi-banking^[28]^[29]) is thought to have begun at various times, during a period as early as the latter part of the 4th millennium BCE,^[30] to within the 4th to 3rd millennia BCE^[31]^[32]

Among many other things, the Code of Hammurabi recorded interest-bearing loans.

Prior to the reign of Sargon I of Akkad (2335–2280 BCE^[33]) the occurrence of trade was limited to the internal boundaries of each city-state of Babylon and the temple located at the centre of economic activity there-in; trade at the time for citizens external to the city was forbidden.^[24]^[34]^[35]

In Babylonia of 2000 BCE, people depositing gold were required to pay amounts as much as one sixtieth of the total deposited. Both the palaces and temple are known to have provided lending and issuing from the wealth they held—the palaces to a lesser extent. Such loans typically involved issuing seed-grain, with re-payment from the harvest. These basic social agreements were documented in clay tablets, with an agreement on interest accrual. The habit of depositing and storing of wealth in temples continued at least until 209 BCE, as evidenced by Antioch having ransacked or pillaged the temple of Aine in Ecbatana (Media) of gold and silver.^[36]^[37]^[38]^[39]^[40]^[41]^[42]^[43]

Cuneiform records of the house of Egibi of Babylonia describe the family’s financial activities dated as having occurred sometime after 1000 BC and ending sometime during the reign of Darius I, show according to one source a “lending house” (Silver 2002), a family engaging in “professional banking…” (Dandamaev et al 2004) and economic activities similar to a degree to modern deposit banking, although another states the family’s activities better described as entrepreneurship rather than banking (Wunsch 2007). The provision of credit is apparently also something the Murashu family participated in (Moshenskyi 2008).

Asia Minor

From the fourth millennia previously agricultural settlements began administrative activities

The temple of Artemis at Ephesus was the largest depository of Asia. A pot-hoard dated to 600 BCE was found in excavations by The British Museum during the year after 1904. During the time at the cessation of the first Mithridatic war the entire debt record at the time being held, was annulled by the council. Mark Anthony is recorded to have stolen from the deposits on an occasion. The temple served as a depository for Aristotle, Caesar, Dio Chrysostomus, Plautus, Plutarch, Strabo and Xenophon.^[58]^[59]^[60]^[61]^[62]^[63]^[64]

The temple to Apollo in Didyma was constructed sometime in the 6th century. A large sum of gold was deposited within the treasury at the time by king Croesus.^[65]^[66]

India

In ancient India there are evidences of loans from the Vedic period (beginning 1750 BC). Later during the Maurya dynasty (321 to 185 BC), an instrument called adesha was in use, which was an order on a banker desiring him to pay the money of the note to a third person, which corresponds to the definition of a bill of exchange as we understand it today. During the Buddhist period, there was considerable use of these instruments. Merchants in large towns gave letters of credit to one another.^[67]^[68]^[69]

China

In ancient China, starting in the Qin Dynasty (221 to 206 BC), Chinese currency developed with the introduction of standardized coins that allowed easier trade across China, and led to development of letters of credit. These letters were issued by merchants who acted in ways that today we would understand as banks.^[70]

Egypt

According to Muir (2009) there were two types of banks operating within Egypt: royal and private.^[71] Documents made to show the banking of taxes were known as peptoken-records.^[72]

Greece

Trapezitica is the first source documenting banking (de Soto – p. 41). The speeches of Demosthenes contain numerous references to the issuing of credit (Millett p. 5). Xenophon is credited to have made the first suggestion of the creation of an organisation known in the modern definition as a joint-stock bank in On Revenues written circa 353 BCE^[8]^[73]^[74]^[75]

The city-states of Greece after the Persian Wars produced a government and culture sufficiently organized for the birth of a private citizenship and therefore an embryonic capitalist society, allowing for the separation of wealth from exclusive state ownership to the possibility of ownership by the individual

According to one source (Dandamaev et al), trapezites were the first to trade using money, during the 5th century BCE, as opposed to earlier trade which occurred using forms of pre-money

Specific locus of funds[edit]

The earliest forms of storage utilized were the rudimentary money-boxes (θΗΣΑΥΡΌΣ^[79]) which were made similar in form to the construction of a bee-hive, and were found for example in the Mycenae tombs of 1550–1500 BC.^[80]^[81]^[82]^[83]^[84]^[85]^[86]

Private and civic entities within ancient Grecian society, especially Greek temples, performed financial transactions. (Gilbart p. 3) The temples were the places where treasure was deposited for safe-keeping. The three temples thought the most important were the temple to Artemis in Ephesus, and temple of Hera within Samos, and within Delphi, the temple to Apollo. These consisted of deposits, currency exchange, validation of coinage, and loans.^[8]^[8]^[74]^[87]^[88]

The first treasury to the Apollonian temple was built before the end of the 7th century BC. A treasury of the temple was constructed by the city of Siphnos during the 6th century.^[89]^[90]^[91]

Before the destruction by Persians during the 480 invasion, the Athenian Acropolis temple dedicated to Athena stored money; Pericles rebuilt a depository afterward contained within the Parthenon.^[92]

During the reign of the Ptolemies, state depositories replaced temples as the location of security-deposits. Records exist to show this having occurred by the end of the reign of Ptolemy I (305–284).^[93]^[94]^[95]^[96]

As the need for new buildings to house operations increased, construction of these places within the cities began around the courtyards of the agora (markets).^[97]

Geographical locus of banking activities[edit]

Athens received the Delian leagues‘ treasury during 454.^[98]

During the late 3rd and 2nd century BC, the Aegean island of Delos, became a prominent banking center.^[99] During the 2nd century, there were for certain three banks and one temple depository within the city.^[100]

Thirty five Hellenistic cities included private banks during the 2nd century (Roberts – p. 130).^[100]

Of the settlements of the Greco-Roman world of the 1st century AD, three were of pronounced wealth and centres of banking, Athens, Corinth and Patras.^[101]^[102]^[103]^[104]^[105]

Loans

Many loans are recorded in writings from the classical age, although a very small proportion were provided by banks. Provision of these were likely an occurrence of Athens, with loans known to have been provided at some time at an annual interest of 12%. Within the boundaries of Athens, bankers loans are recorded as having been issued on eleven occasions altogether (Bogaert 1968).

Banks sometimes made loans available confidentially, which is, they provided funds without being publicly and openly known to have done so, in addition also, to act as intermediaries for persons to loan their own monies without this being known to others. This intermediation per se was known as dia tes trapazēs

A loan was made by a Temple of Athens to the state during 433–427 BCE

Indonesia

A blog in my earlier site had explored Indonesia. Decided to write up something again:

The History of Indonesia or more precisely of the Indonesian archipelago in South East Asia with 17,508 islands goes back to Homo erectus (popularly known as the “Java Man”). There have been found fossilized remains of about one million years ago.^[1]

Austronesian people, who form the majority of the modern population, came to South East Asia from Taiwan. They arrived in Indonesia around 2000 BCE. The native Melanesian peoples went to the far eastern regions.^[2] The agricultural conditions were very good. When wet-field rice cultivation was developed as early as the eighth century BCE,^[3] villages and towns developed. And small kingdoms began to flourish by the first century CE. Indonesia’s sea-lane position helped international trade. There was trade with both Indian kingdoms and China already several centuries BCE.^[4] Trade has since fundamentally shaped Indonesian history.^[5]

The nutmeg plant is native to Indonesia’s Banda Islands. It is so valuable, that European colonial powers were attacted to Indonesia.

From the seventh century CE, the powerful Srivijaya naval kingdom flourished as a result of trade. Hinduism and Buddhism were imported with it.^[6] In the late 13th century, the Hindu Majapahit kingdom was founded in eastern Java and under Gajah Mada, its influence stretched over much of Indonesia; this period is often referred to as a “Golden Age” in Indonesian history.^[7]

During the 13th century Islam spread to the in northern Sumatra.^[8] More and more Indonesian areas gradually adopted Islam. By the end of the 16th century it was the dominant religion in Java and Sumatra. But it mixed with existing cultural and religious influences.^[9]

The first Europeans arrived in Indonesia in 1512, when Portuguese traders, led by Francisco Serrão, sought to monopolize the sources of nutmeg, cloves, and cubeb pepper in Maluku.^[10] Dutch and British traders followed. In 1602 the Dutch established the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and became the dominant European power. But Dutch control stretched not very far. Only in the early 20th century it extended to borders of today.

Sukarno, Indonesia’s founding president

During the Second World War the Dutch lost control and in August 1945, Sukarno, an influential nationalist leader, declared independence and was appointed president.^[11] After some fights the Netherlands formally recognized Indonesian independence in December 1949^[12] (with the exception of The Dutch territory of West New Guinea).

Sukarno moved from democracy towards dictatorship. But Sukarno lost power to the head of the military, General Suharto who was formally appointed president in March 1968. He was supported by the US government,^[13] and encouraged foreign direct investment in Indonesia, which helped economic growth during the following thirty years.^[14] But his rule went along with corruption and suppression of political opposition.

In 1997 and 1998, Indonesia was the country hardest hit by the Asian Financial Crisis.^[15] This increased popular discontent with the New Order^[16] and led to popular protests. Suharto resigned on 21 May 1998.^[17] In 1999, East Timor voted to leave the state of Indonesia, after a twenty-five-year military occupation.^[18] After Suharto’s resignation democracy improved. A regional autonomy program was introduced, and the first direct presidential election took place in 2004. But some political and economic instability has remained.^[19] A political settlement to an armed separatist conflict in Aceh was achieved in 2005.^[20]

The history of Indonesia has been shaped by its geographic position, its natural resources, a series of human migrations and contacts, wars and conquests, as well as by trade, economics and politics. Indonesia is an archipelagiccountry of 17,000 to 18,000 islands (8,844 named and 922 permanently inhabited) stretching along the equator in South East Asia. The country’s strategic sea-lane position fostered inter-island and international trade; trade has since fundamentally shaped Indonesian history. The area of Indonesia is populated by peoples of various migrations, creating a diversity of cultures, ethnicities, and languages. The archipelago’s landforms and climate significantly influenced agriculture and trade, and the formation of states. The boundaries of the state of Indonesia represent the 20th century borders of the Dutch East Indies.

Fossilised remains of Homo erectus and his tools, popularly known as the “Java Man“, suggest the Indonesian archipelago was inhabited by at least 1.5 million years ago. Austronesian people, who form the majority of the modern population, are thought to have originally been from Taiwan and arrived in Indonesia around 2000 BCE. From the 7th century CE, the powerful Srivijaya naval kingdom flourished bringing Hindu and Buddhist influences with it. The agricultural Buddhist Sailendra and Hindu Mataram dynasties subsequently thrived and declined in inland Java. The last significant non-Muslim kingdom, the Hindu Majapahit kingdom, flourished from the late 13th century, and its influence stretched over much of Indonesia. The earliest evidence of Islamised populations in Indonesia dates to the 13th century in northern Sumatra; other Indonesian areas gradually adopted Islam which became the dominant religion in Java and Sumatra by the end of the 16th century. For the most part, Islam overlaid and mixed with existing cultural and religious influences.

Europeans such as the Portuguese arrived in Indonesia from the 16th century seeking to monopolise the sources of valuable nutmeg, cloves, and cubeb pepper in Maluku. In 1602 the Dutch established the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and became the dominant European power by 1610. Following bankruptcy, the VOC was formally dissolved in 1800, and the government of the Netherlands established the Dutch East Indies under government control. By the early 20th century, Dutch dominance extended to the current boundaries. The Japanese invasion and subsequent occupation in 1942–45 during WWII ended Dutch rule, and encouraged the previously suppressed Indonesian independence movement. Two days after the surrender of Japan in August 1945, nationalist leader, Sukarno, declared independence and became president. The Netherlands tried to reestablish its rule, but a bitter armed and diplomatic struggle ended in December 1949, when in the face of international pressure, the Dutch formally recognised Indonesian independence.

An attempted coup in 1965 led to a violent army-led anti-communist purge in which over half a million people were killed. General Suharto politically outmanoeuvred President Sukarno, and became president in March 1968. His New Order administration garnered the favour of the West, whose investment in Indonesia was a major factor in the subsequent three decades of substantial economic growth. In the late 1990s, however, Indonesia was the country hardest hit by the East Asian Financial Crisis, which led to popular protests and Suharto’s resignation on 21 May 1998. The Reformasi era following Suharto’s resignation, has led to a strengthening of democratic processes, including a regional autonomy program, the secession of East Timor, and the first direct presidential election in 2004. Political and economic instability, social unrest, corruption, natural disasters, and terrorism have slowed progress. Although relations among different religious and ethnic groups are largely harmonious, acute sectarian discontent and violence remain problems in some areas.