Demons in Your Toilet? Guardians of the Sewers and How They Protected Ancient Latrines
As a ritual symbol of purification, water plays a key role in the public space of hygiene and sanitary activities as well as in almost all religions past and present. From the first moment mankind invented rituals and deities, the notion of purification was attached to the act of ritual ablutions. The very act of washing was not only about cleaning oneself from dirt - it also freed one from spiritual impurities.
People bathing and praying in the holy river Ganga. (Wellcome Images/CC BY 4.0)
The Good, The Bad, and the Dirty
Baths and latrines are found throughout history. During the third millennium BCE, when toilets and sewers were invented throughout the world, so came the demons that were said to lurk in the toilets. But these facilities also had deities guarding them.
