Water Borne Civilizations

by Chris Middleton

Water was the medium for life on the planet four billion years ago. Four billion years later it still remains the most important substance for survival, as well as being one of our most deadly. For mankind’ advancement water needed to be controlled.

The debate on what constitutes the crucial factors to define a civilisation must include the definition of water management as a necessary precursor. For without the ability to harvest, store and dispose of spoilt water no civilisation can be built. This marked the success of the prototypical civilisations of the Sumerians in Mesopotamia, the Egyptians on the Nile, the Mayans of the Yucatan, the Chinese along the Yellow river, as well as every civilisation and city through history.  When nomadic peoples settled into villages, then fortified towns the need for fresh and regular water supply was paramount. The shift from settled community to formative civilisation is measured in their ability to capture, transport and manage their daily water requirements. Being a sedentary society they also needed to manage their water to irrigate crops and for their animal husbandry.

Clean water is needed to sustain life. We can live a month without food but only a week without water. While we need it daily we also have the same need to remove it too. Societies generate pollution from human wastes and rubbish, animal excreta and trade detritus all having the propensity to contaminate water sources, as well as becoming the breeding ground for a host of deadly pathogens that feed gastro-intestinal diseases and nurture vermin. 

One of the earliest and most enduring civilisations were the Egyptians. As their cities rose on the banks of the Nile 4,500 years ago they employed a number of technologies to purify their drinking water. The Nile, their main source of water was rich in sediment sluiced from the Ethiopian highlands by the monsoonal weather system. To remediate the Nile’s silty waters the Egyptians devised a number of filtration systems. On the tomb wall of Amenopthis II at Thebes in 1,450 BCE it depicts Nile water being siphoned through a series of clarifying clay pots.

Further evidence reveals the Egyptians were also flocculating the water with alum (aluminium sulphate) to bind suspended particles to help cleanse the turbidity. This was a technique also used in ancient China (as well as water boiling which led to the agreeable practise of flavouring the water with aromatic tea leaves). The Egyptians are also credited with pioneering the charcoal filter, where water passes through layers of carbonised wood trapping sediment and impurities. This is the very same process that Jack Daniel’s uses today to leech the whiskey through meters of charcoaled sugar maple to ensure the raw spirit is clean and mellow tasting.

In addition to clarification by flocculating and purification by filtration the Egyptians also recognised the sterilising properties of boiling water and exposure to UV sunlight.

While the Egyptians micro-managed their water cleaning devices the great Indus valley cities of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro were the first to construct massive city-wide sanitation networks around 2,600 BCE. It was an unparalleled engineering achievement, matched only by the Roman aqueducts and the industrial-scale infrastructures of the modern world. These cities constructed waterproof brick tunnels and cisterns to channel fresh water through the metropolis into neighbourhoods and homes. Then they used baked, tapered earthen pipes to convey the water into their homes. They even created the first water flushed toilets, for private homes and public venues.

After the Egyptians the Greek city states made a small contribution to water improvement. The most notable innovation was from Hippocrates around 300 BCE when he was credited with inventing, or at least giving his name to ‘Hippocrates sleeve’. It was a simple cloth straining system similar to the biggin or paper coffee filter; wisely Hippocrates also cautioned that for the best results the water should be boiled.

One of the great water civilisations were the Romans. Remembered for their extensive aqueduct system they built throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa between 342 BCE and 225 ACE. It was the most ambitious engineering feat in the movement of water supplies until the 20th century. When the Romans occupied the Etruscan city in 509 BCE, it already had a rudimentary drainage system known as the Cloaca Maxima (built around 600 BCE it is still functioning with its orifice visible on the eastern bank of the Tiber today). When the river Tiber, Rome’s vital artery and the municipal wells became polluted the first aqueduct was constructed in 342 BCE.

At Rome’s peak eleven aqueducts plumbed the city. Two thousand years later it is a legacy that still irrigates the modern citizens of Rome today. The Romans of the imperial period discriminated about their water quality judging each water source by its transparency and taste. Aqua Marcia was regarded as the finest water originating from the Anio River 92 kilometres away. Pliny claimed it was also the coldest. The next best water came from a spring 22 kilometres to the north, carried by the Aqua Viro which today ends at the Trevi fountain. Other aqueducts such as the Aqua Anio Novus and Anio Vetus (Tivoli) fed off the same river Anio were regarded a slightly muddy. As in Roman times the water route often terminated in a spectacular fountain display.  Most of the other aqueducts were malodorous or quite muddy in appearance as they tapped into silted lakes, turbid rivers or were exposed to surface contaminants before they reached the city. To clean up the water the Romans devised settling basins or pools, some aqueducts incorporated zig zag channels to slow the water and allow sediment to settle. Other techniques included purifying by aeration to help oxygenate the water and mineral flocculation. Upon entering Rome the water was channelled through a network of terra cotta pipes and then into hundreds of kilometres of lead pipes. These pipes fed the water to ground level homes and to public facilities like baths and hundreds of potable fountains generously situated throughout the city. Frontinius the overseer of Rome’s water system reported the thieving practise where parasitic Romans ‘punctured’ the pipes to tap into a free and limitless supply of public water.

The next improvement in water quality in large urban societies would take another 1,600 years to manifest. Of course if you had the means or lived a rural existence you had access to clean streams, springs and spas. These natural water egresses had been since the dawn of human time associated with fertility and religious meaning: mystical groves and sacred sites. As the notion of gods and goddesses diminished some water sites were more objectively appreciated for their invigorating and curative benefits. Some of the old pagan sites such as Lourdes would be reinvented as being mystical and reverential places of healing and pilgrimage; re-enacting the ancient cycle of female fertility deeply ingrained in the psyche of old rural communities.

Water symbolises life and/or purification in all the major religions of the world. Especially desert based religions where it features in the daily rituals of spiritual and bodily ablutions and the ceremonies of rebirth, as in the Christian baptism. In the pagan world it is one of the four classical elements, its alchemical symbol being the down-turned triangle representing water’s directional flow and the life-giving female symbol of the genitalia.

Water gave life and spiritual meaning to all cultures. The birth and development of every civilisation is a story on how effectively they managed their water. To be a great civilisation usually meant how adept they were in integrating their water culture into their city and export this knowledge to edify their empire. The Romans represent an historical apex in water culture that would not be surpassed until the Industrial Age, when population and pollution pressures necessitated the next advancements in the science and management of water.

© Chris Middleton 2005

Chris Middleton of Fountainhead is a Senior Adviser for FineWaters stationed in Sydney, Australia. Chris does drink trend analysis, new product and brand development.