Daily bathing is a recent luxury, especially in the West. Many are surprised to learn that not so long ago even royalty did not bathe on a daily basis, but only once a week, or even less frequently.
Bathing has become such a part of life for most people that we hardly think about not having the chance to do so regularly. It is a staple of life. But, has it always been? For some societies it has been a daily right for a very long time. The earliest records of bathing date from about 1,500 B.C., and are found in the grihya sutras of ancient India, and in cities of ancient Greece.
Many ancient societies incorporated bathing as a regular part of life. Probably the most notable ancient baths would be that of the famous Roman baths. The Romans created an extensive aqueduct system that brought plenteous water into their cities, and created bathhouses to use that water.
Other societies learned from the Romans. There is even a city in England called “Bath”, and is so named because the occupying Romans built a bathhouse over a spring dedicated to their goddess Minerva. The Britons had dedicated the spring to Sulis, and may have washed there, but there is no record of that.
The Roman “thermae”, their luxurious hot baths of the more affluent, and the “balneae”, the smaller, unheated baths that served the rest of society, were served by the aqueduct system that was built in Rome starting in 312 B.C. The baths would have shortly followed their construction.
Some now believe, however, that the Roman baths were built first by the wealthy in their homes, and then the idea for public baths became popular, so that the whole society could practice hygiene. This may be the case, as the first public baths may not have been built until the first century B.C.E.
Other ancient civilizations had aqueducts feeding their baths, including Crete, where the oldest baths in Greece were found.
Oldest Bathing Rites
If we define bathing merely as washing any part of the body, then the oldest recorded ‘bath’ might be that of the washing of the feet of the three men who visited Abraham. This would have occurred in roughly 1710 years B.C.E.
If, however, we are looking for the more common understanding of a bath, then we need to look to ancient India. The grihya sutras are part of the religious rights of Hindu people in ancient India, and are still practiced today.
Part of their worship was ritual bathing and washing, three times a day. The grihya sutras are writings that detail the circumstances for these ritual baths. These date from 1,500 B.C.E.
Archaeology has unearthed baths and wash basins in ancient Greece that date from around the same time, in the middle of the second millennium B.C. Knossos, Akrotiri, and Crete, settlements in ancient Greece, reveal bath tubs were used in those early civilizations.
Who Did It Best?
The bathtubs found at Akrotiri were luxurious, alabaster tubs. A volcano destroyed the island, but preserved much of the ancient Minoan city, including toilets and tubs. Bathing was a part of daily Minoan life.
There is debate about who practiced bathing first, the Greeks or the Romans. The Greeks bathed in cold water first, and then hot; the Romans reversed it, taking a cold soak after a hot bath.
Many today believe that the Romans merely improved upon the customs of Greeks in regard to bathing, since Rome conquered Greece and borrowed much of its wisdom.