Page 211 - ירושלים: גיליון רפואי

Broom and Commode

The Talmud mentions ten public facilities required by every city, and a commode, a public
lavatory, is one of them.
In the City of David, several commodes from the 6th century BCE were uncovered in private
homes. They were in small rooms, had seats of stone in the shape of a square with a hole in the
middle and were set over cesspits. These homes belonged to wealthy members of the upper
class, attesting to the existence of city planning and an awareness of sanitation needs.
At the beginning of the modern era, Jerusalem suffered from filth and pollution. Cesspits
seeped into adjacent water cisterns and were the source of diseases and epidemics. Travelers
reported on foul odors, sewage running in streets and alleyways, and particularly noted the
neglect of the Turkish authorities, thus giving the city a bad name.
When the German Kaiser Wilhelm II visited Jerusalem in 1898, the municipal government
made sure the streets were cleaned, and newspapers of the period reported that the streets of
Jerusalem were swept for the first time in years. The brooms were made from thorny rosaceae
bushes attached to wooden poles.

‫מטאטא משיח סירה קוצנית‬
A Broom made from thrny rosaceae bushe

209 ■ ‫מטאטא ובית הכסא‬