This post is based on the episode with Dr. Piers Mitchell who at the time of the interview was an Honorary Research Associate at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the University of Cambridge. He was the lead author of a study that analyzed sediments from two latrines from the Kingdom of Judah, The post was generated by AI but edited by a human.
What was everyday life really like in biblical Jerusalem?
We often approach the history of ancient Judah through its kings, prophets, wars, and religious traditions. The biblical texts tell us about the Assyrian threat, the Babylonian conquest, and the political struggles of the Kingdom of Judah.
Archaeology adds another dimension to this history.
Excavations have uncovered houses, pottery, inscriptions, and other material remains that reveal how people lived in Jerusalem during the Iron Age.
But one of the most unexpected sources of information about the city's inhabitants comes from its ancient toilets.
In a study of sediment recovered from two latrines dating to the Kingdom of Judah, researchers identified evidence of Giardia, a microscopic intestinal parasite capable of causing severe diarrheal illness.
The discovery provided what the researchers described as the earliest known evidence of Giardia-associated dysentery.
It also offered a rare glimpse into the health and sanitation challenges faced by the inhabitants of ancient Jerusalem.
In this episode of The Levantini Podcast, I speak with archaeologist and paleoparasitologist Piers Mitchell, an honorary research associate at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the University of Cambridge and lead author of the study.
Our conversation explores the discovery, the scientific techniques used to identify ancient parasites, the design of Iron Age toilets, and what these findings tell us about health and disease in biblical Judah.
Perhaps most surprisingly, both latrines were associated with wealthy residences.
Even the city's elite appear to have been exposed to intestinal parasites.
What Is Dysentery?
Before discussing the archaeological discovery, Mitchell explains what dysentery actually is.
Dysentery is not a single disease caused by one organism.
Rather, it describes a group of symptoms that can result from several kinds of intestinal infection.
These include diarrhea, abdominal cramps, fever, and inflammation of the intestinal lining.
The infections may be caused by bacteria, viruses, or protozoal parasites.
The importance of dysentery in the ancient world becomes clear when we consider the conditions in which people lived.
Without modern sanitation, safe drinking water, or an understanding of microorganisms, intestinal infections could circulate repeatedly through communities.
Did People in the Ancient Near East Know About Diarrheal Diseases?
Although ancient people did not understand the microbial causes of dysentery, they were familiar with its symptoms.
Mitchell points to medical texts from ancient Mesopotamia.
Writing first developed in the Near East during the fourth millennium BCE, but the earliest written records were largely administrative.
They recorded quantities of grain, economic transactions, and other practical matters.
Medical descriptions become more visible in the surviving textual record during the second and first millennia BCE.
Some Mesopotamian medical texts describe symptoms consistent with diarrheal illness.
Mitchell discusses the Akkadian term šasîsu, which specialists have associated with diarrhea.
One ancient description refers to a person who eats bread and drinks beer and subsequently experiences abdominal cramps and the flowing of the bowels.
The text attributes the illness to a supernatural cause.
This reflects a fundamental difference between ancient and modern explanations of disease.
People in Mesopotamia could recognize symptoms without knowing that microorganisms were responsible.
Illness could instead be understood through the activity of supernatural beings or other forces.
Treatments might involve incantations intended to help the sufferer recover.
Mitchell emphasizes that ancient medical terminology must be interpreted cautiously.
A term used thousands of years ago cannot automatically be equated with a modern diagnosis.
Nevertheless, these texts demonstrate that diarrheal illnesses were familiar enough to be described and discussed by ancient medical practitioners.
What Is Giardia?
The parasite identified in the Jerusalem latrines was Giardia.
Mitchell explains that Giardia is one of several protozoal parasites capable of causing serious intestinal illness.
Giardia is a microscopic, single-celled parasite that infects the digestive tract.
It is known by several scientific names, including Giardia duodenalis, Giardia lamblia, and Giardia intestinalis.
Mitchell discusses evidence of Giardia from ancient archaeological contexts beyond Jerusalem.
These include Roman-period sites in Europe and the Middle East, as well as older evidence from North America.
Such findings raise fascinating questions about the evolutionary history of infectious diseases.
Did humans carry certain parasites as they migrated around the world?
Did people acquire them from local animals?
Or did the organisms circulate between human and animal populations in different regions?
Mitchell explains that scientists can investigate these questions by comparing the parasites found in humans with those affecting other mammals, including primates.
But the precise evolutionary history of Giardia remains uncertain.
What the Jerusalem discovery establishes is that this parasite was present in the region long before the Roman period.
Why the Jerusalem Discovery Was Important
Before the Jerusalem study, researchers had already identified evidence of intestinal protozoa in other ancient archaeological contexts.
Mitchell mentions Roman-period sites in Turkey and Italy, as well as earlier evidence of Entamoeba in Neolithic Greece.
But identifying these organisms in ancient deposits is difficult.
Parasitic worms often produce durable eggs that can survive in soil for thousands of years.
Protozoal parasites are different.
Their cysts and oocysts are relatively fragile.
They can deform or break down as organic material decomposes.
Fungi, insects, and other organisms contribute to the destruction of these remains.
As a result, researchers cannot always identify ancient protozoa simply by examining archaeological sediment under a microscope.
This is where the Jerusalem study becomes especially interesting.
Instead of relying only on the survival of visible parasite structures, Mitchell and his colleagues used a technique that detects proteins associated with the organisms.
That allowed them to identify Giardia in material from the Iron Age.
The study therefore expanded the archaeological evidence for intestinal disease in the ancient Near East.
Two Ancient Toilets from the Kingdom of Judah
The study examined sediment from two Iron Age latrines associated with elite properties in Jerusalem.
Both dated to the period of the Kingdom of Judah, before the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem in 587/586 BCE.
The latrines were associated with substantial residences. They were purpose-built toilet installations associated with wealthy households.
Mitchell describes the stone seats as square blocks with carefully shaped openings.
A central hole allowed feces to pass into a cesspit below.
A separate oval opening toward the front appears to have been intended for urination.
The upper surface was shaped to accommodate someone sitting on the seat.
In this respect, the toilets were surprisingly recognizable.
Although their drainage systems were very different from those of modern toilets, their basic seating arrangement would not have seemed entirely unfamiliar.
Mitchell notes that other Iron Age stone toilet seats discovered in the Levant share similar characteristics.
This suggests a recognizable design tradition.
Were Ancient Jerusalem's Toilets Comfortable?
One of the more unusual parts of our conversation concerned the physical design of the seats.
Mitchell explains that the stone blocks were carefully shaped.
The upper surfaces had shallow carved depressions that would have made them more comfortable to sit on.
This suggests that the users were expected to sit rather than simply squat over an opening.
What the stone seats do demonstrate is that wealthy Judahites invested in carefully designed sanitation facilities.
Even in an era without modern plumbing, comfort and convenience mattered.
How Did Ancient Jerusalem's Toilets Work?
The latrines operated as cesspits.
A stone toilet seat was positioned above a pit dug into the ground.
Waste accumulated below.
Unlike modern flush toilets, these installations were not connected to a sophisticated system that continuously carried waste away.
Mitchell compares them with earlier toilet technologies in Mesopotamia.
Some of the earliest known household toilets consisted of vertical arrangements of ceramic vessels that allowed waste to pass downward into the soil.
Other ancient societies developed more elaborate drainage systems.
The Judahite toilets were simpler.
They offered a designated place for waste disposal, but the waste remained in or near the property.
Over time, a cesspit would eventually fill.
I asked Mitchell how wealthy households could have managed such installations.
Would they have hired workers to empty them?
He explained that professional cesspit cleaning is documented in some later societies, including the Roman world.
Waste removed from cesspits could even be reused as fertilizer.
But there is no direct evidence showing how these particular Judahite households maintained their toilets.
The pits might have been emptied.
Alternatively, a filled pit could have been abandoned and a new one dug nearby.
The stone seat could then have been moved.
The evidence does not allow us to choose between these possibilities.
Why Was Jerusalem Vulnerable to Intestinal Disease?
Jerusalem was the capital of the Kingdom of Judah.
During the eighth and seventh centuries BCE, it was an important political, religious, and administrative center.
Mitchell describes a city that may have contained approximately 8,000 to 25,000 inhabitants during the seventh century BCE, depending on the estimate.
Its population included elites living in substantial residences, as well as the broader urban community.
The city relied on agricultural production, including grain, olives, grapes, and other crops.
But life in Jerusalem also involved environmental challenges.
The region experiences a Mediterranean climate.
Much of the rain falls during the cooler months.
Summers are hot and dry.
Water collected during the rainy season had to be stored for use during periods of limited rainfall.
Mitchell explains that these conditions could create opportunities for intestinal infections to spread.
If stored drinking water became contaminated with human waste, parasites could be transmitted.
Food could also become contaminated.
Flies provided another potential route.
They could land on feces and subsequently transfer contaminated material to food or other surfaces.
Limited water availability could make frequent washing more difficult.
And ancient inhabitants did not understand the microbial causes of intestinal disease.
They therefore lacked the knowledge needed to interrupt transmission in the ways that modern public health recommends.
The combination of stored water, inadequate waste disposal, and environmental contamination created conditions in which intestinal parasites could circulate.
What Other Parasites Were Found in the Jerusalem Latrines?
Giardia was not the only intestinal parasite identified in the archaeological material.
Mitchell discusses earlier analyses that found evidence of parasitic worms, including roundworm, whipworm, tapeworm, and pinworm.
These organisms can spread through different routes.
Some infections are associated with poor sanitation and the contamination of food or water with human waste.
Others are connected with dietary practices.
For example, tapeworm infections can result from eating inadequately cooked infected meat.
Mitchell explains that the different parasites therefore reveal different aspects of ancient life.
Some point toward sanitation conditions.
Others may reflect food preparation and consumption.
Together, they provide evidence of the range of intestinal infections affecting people in the ancient Near East.
They also demonstrate why archaeologists need to interpret individual parasite species carefully.
Not every intestinal infection has the same cause.
What the Latrines Reveal About Everyday Life in Biblical Judah
The discovery is a reminder that the inhabitants of biblical Jerusalem lived with challenges rarely described in the historical narratives.
They had to secure drinking water.
They had to prepare food.
They had to dispose of human waste.
And they faced diseases whose causes they could not see or understand.
The two ancient latrines reveal something about all of these realities.
Their carefully carved stone seats demonstrate that wealthy households invested in purpose-built sanitation facilities.
Their cesspits show how waste could accumulate close to domestic spaces.
The parasite evidence indicates that intestinal infections circulated despite the material advantages enjoyed by elite residents.
And the laboratory methods used by Mitchell and his colleagues demonstrate how archaeology can recover evidence that is invisible to the naked eye.
The findings also connect the material record with ancient medical texts.
Mesopotamian writers described symptoms consistent with diarrheal disease centuries before modern microbiology.
Now archaeological research provides direct biological evidence of one organism capable of producing such illness.
Together, these sources help reconstruct a dimension of ancient Near Eastern life that political histories and royal inscriptions rarely reveal.
Ancient Jerusalem, Dysentery, and Iron Age Toilets: Frequently Asked Questions
1. Did people in ancient Jerusalem suffer from dysentery?
Researchers detected evidence of Giardia, a parasite capable of causing diarrheal disease, in sediment from two Iron Age Jerusalem latrines. This establishes the presence of the parasite, although it cannot determine how many residents developed symptomatic dysentery.
2. How old were the Jerusalem toilets?
The latrines dated to the period of the Kingdom of Judah, approximately the eighth to seventh centuries BCE, before the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem in 587/586 BCE.
3. What did toilets look like in ancient Judah?
The toilets featured carved stone seats with openings for waste to pass into cesspits beneath them. The upper surfaces were shaped for sitting.
4. What is Giardia?
Giardia is a microscopic intestinal parasite that can infect humans and other mammals. It commonly spreads through contaminated water or food and can cause diarrhea, abdominal discomfort, and other symptoms.
5. How did scientists detect Giardia in ancient sediment?
Researchers used ELISA, an antibody-based laboratory method that detects proteins associated with the target organism.
6. Why were intestinal infections a problem in ancient Jerusalem?
Contaminated water, contaminated food, flies, waste disposal practices, and limited understanding of infectious disease could facilitate transmission.
7. How did ancient people clean their cesspits?
The maintenance practices of these particular Jerusalem installations are unknown. Later societies sometimes employed workers to empty cesspits, but that practice cannot be assumed for Iron Age Judah.
