The contraption shown at 0:13 is a toilet leading to a public underground sewer system. The pipes and stone slabs are the earliest known examples of siphons which are designed to prevent sewer smells from entering the home! These toilets appear to have been relatively common right throughout Minoan culture given they've been found in both Knossos and Akrotiri, and given the size of the underground sewer systems. No other culture had this kind of technology for thousands of years!! Even the Egyptian pharaohs (at the same time as the Minoans had their luxury toilets) had to poop into buckets full of sand which had to be emptied by a servant! The Minoans also had hot and cold running water bought into their homes by plumbing systems, and underfloor heating!! Even average folks had underfloor heating :o it's crazy to think what kind of technological advancements they may have made if Thera hadn't been the catalyst for their demise. I know some say Thera had nothing to do with it, but Thera is now estimated to have been one of the largest eruptions ever witnessed by humanity. Many times larger than Krakatoa (and Krakatoa was so large that it created tsunamis over 100 feet high and the explosion was heard around the whole world!!). Volcanoes that large cause climate change draughts, famine, pestilence etc for many years after the initial eruption. I believe that so much of the Minoan population was decimated after Thera that they couldn't recover even though they did struggle on for a few generations after the destruction. Then whatever took out the rest of the Bronze Age civilisations was the final blow for the Minoans. :c Anyway thank you for sharing this video of the Actrotiri house.. I can't wait until they can excavate more and share their findings with the world. If I was wealthy I'd definitely be funding those digs! :)
The contraption shown at 0:13 is a toilet leading to a public underground sewer system. The pipes and stone slabs are the earliest known examples of siphons which are designed to prevent sewer smells from entering the home! These toilets appear to have been relatively common right throughout Minoan culture given they've been found in both Knossos and Akrotiri, and given the size of the underground sewer systems. No other culture had this kind of technology for thousands of years!! Even the Egyptian pharaohs (at the same time as the Minoans had their luxury toilets) had to poop into buckets full of sand which had to be emptied by a servant! The Minoans also had hot and cold running water bought into their homes by plumbing systems, and underfloor heating!! Even average folks had underfloor heating :o it's crazy to think what kind of technological advancements they may have made if Thera hadn't been the catalyst for their demise. I know some say Thera had nothing to do with it, but Thera is now estimated to have been one of the largest eruptions ever witnessed by humanity. Many times larger than Krakatoa (and Krakatoa was so large that it created tsunamis over 100 feet high and the explosion was heard around the whole world!!). Volcanoes that large cause climate change draughts, famine, pestilence etc for many years after the initial eruption. I believe that so much of the Minoan population was decimated after Thera that they couldn't recover even though they did struggle on for a few generations after the destruction. Then whatever took out the rest of the Bronze Age civilisations was the final blow for the Minoans. :c
Anyway thank you for sharing this video of the Actrotiri house.. I can't wait until they can excavate more and share their findings with the world. If I was wealthy I'd definitely be funding those digs! :)