Archaeologists discover 1300-year-old flush toilet in ancient Korean palace

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Archaeologists in South Korea discovered a 1,300-year-old flush toilet system at the ancient Donggung palace complex. This find gives a new understanding of how advanced the sanitation facilities were during the Silla Kingdom era.

"We believe this was the crown prince's bathroom. This is actually the first flush toilet in history! It emptied directly into a nearby river," said Kim Gyeong Yeol, who led the excavation and is an archaeologist with the Korean Heritage Service, as reported by Dagbladet. Kim characterized the discovery as significant, pointing out that these flushing toilets were the first of their kind in Korea.

"The royal toilet with river drainage is the first of its kind in Korea. It's truly impressive, and it implies that royalty and other high-ranking individuals in ancient Korea had access to more advanced sanitation facilities," Kim said, as reported by Dagbladet.

according to Live Science A servant would have poured water into them to enable them to flush.

Inside the palace, one toilet stood out from the rest. It had its own unique drainage system, which sent human waste directly into a pipe that flowed into the river. This toilet was probably used by the crown prince and the ladies who were closest to him, according to Live Science.

The name of the palace, Donggung, translates to "Crown Prince." The Donggung palace was built in 674 CE along with a pond called Woji Pond during the beginning of the Unified Silla period, when the Silla Kingdom ruled over more than half of the Korean Peninsula.

The Silla Kingdom is regarded as one of the oldest kingdoms in Korea. For more than a decade, archaeologists in South Korea have made several significant discoveries at the ancient palace in the Silla Kingdom. Previous excavations at the site uncovered the remains of at least 26 structures, as well as numerous artifacts including bowls, plates, and flower-patterned bricks.

The other flush toilets located outside the palace in adjacent buildings collected human waste inside them, much like public restrooms do. Some were positioned side by side and operated like traditional outdoor toilets, with waste left on the ground beneath the toilet. The palace's distinctive drainage system highlights the importance of the facility used by the crown prince.

Flush toilets have been discovered in ancient cultures beyond their origins. In cities of the Indus Valley Civilization, which dates back to around 2600 to 1900 BCE in present-day Pakistan, flush toilets were found to direct waste into a series of pipes that emptied into a sewage system, according to Live Science. This indicates that sanitation systems had been in existence thousands of years ago, roughly around the same time as when the pyramids were being built in Egypt.

Sir John Harrington created a device in 1596 for Queen Elizabeth I that "released wastes into cesspools," an early precursor to modern toilets. However, Harrington's device was missing a crucial S-bend, which would have allowed unpleasant odors to seep back into the room, and it required a significant 7.5 gallons of water to flush, as Live Science points out.

The article was written with the help of a news analysis system.