“Archeologists found a 2,000–YEAR OLD stone toilet that could be FLUSHED with PIPE WATER in a Chinese tomb.”

National Geographic 5,000 Awesome Facts, fact #1 of 25 on toilets

A group of archeologists from the China Academy of Social Sciences’ Institute of Archaeology were excavating 2 large buildings that were in the ruins of a palace in the city of Yueyang, China, (http://.businessinsider.com) when they stumbled upon some “plumbing” and a part of a toilet seat. 

It had a pipe that led to an outdoor sewage pit that was “deceptively advanced” per Fan Mingyang, an ancient tool expert. It possessed a flush water drainage system where the the person would have sat on or squatted over the seat, and afterwards someone would have to pour buckets of water into the toilet to flush away waste.

It is thought it was used only for royalty due to the location where it was found and the man power it took probably to flush it. 

The flush-able toilet actually dates back to either the Scots around 3000 BC or the Greeks back in 1700 B.C. where similar set-ups in excavations were found.

However, a Sir John Harrington, who was the godson of Queen Elizabeth I, got credit for inventing a “water closet” with a raised cistern and a small down pipe where water would run to flush the waste in 1592.

His invention would go unnoticed until 1775 when it was patented by Alexander Cummings, who developed the S shaped pipe that goes under the toilet basin to keep out foul odors. (www.baus.org.uk)

Nobody knew about the flushable toilet in China that predates the Victorian one in England. 

Yueyang, a tourist destination, can now add the first flushable stone toilet in China to its list of attractions.