There’s nothing quite like the satisfaction of washing away the dirt, sweat and grime from a long day. A little soap and lather goes a long way in keeping us clean, but how did humans wash themselves before the invention of modern technology? soap?
Soap has a very simple formula and a long history. But for centuries, water has been the primary means of bathing. For example, in Indus Valley Civilization — A culture that flourished in parts of present-day Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan from 2600 to 1900 BCE — The Great Bath at Mohenjo-Daro One of the oldest public baths To take a steamy shower, but the steam doesn’t reach that far.
Before soap became a staple of personal hygiene, “there were a lot of people who smelled really bad,” Judith Rednera historian at Mississippi State University who writes about material culture, tells Live Science.
Although modern soap formulations contain many additional ingredients, basic soap is a fairly simple mixture. It is a salt of a fatty acid, that is, a combination of an alkali—a water-soluble compound—and a fat, Christine Konkol“As a chemical compound, a soap molecule has a hydrophilic head and an oil-loving carbon chain tail that surrounds and lifts dirt molecules,” Konkol, a chemist at Albany State University, told Live Science.
This basic formula was essential to the soap-making of ancient civilizations. Plants, animal bile, oils, and exfoliants, such as sand and wood ash, were the main ingredients of these early cleansers.
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It is difficult for historians to trace the earliest forms of soap because of one major barrier: “Soap decomposes,” he said. Seth Rasmussen“We can use chemical dating and archaeology, but that requires the samples to have survived from when they were first produced until now.”
the oldest written records Soap-like substances date back to around 2500 BC. MesopotamiaClay tablets indicate that the Sumerians used water and sodium carbonate—a powdered salt like that found in plant ash—to clean themselves and beer and hot water to clean wounds.
After two hundred years, Akkadian Empire In Mesopotamia, a mixture of plants, such as date palms, pine cones, and a shrub called tamarisk was used. This mixture corresponds to the basic ingredients of modern soap: an alkali, such as tamarisk; an oil, such as date palms; and an abrasive, such as pine cones, according to Konkol and Rasmussen. It is explained in their paper. About soap in ancient times.
“There’s really not much difference between modern soap and old-fashioned soap,” Redner said.
How did this happen when modern science didn’t exist in ancient times? Konkol said people probably made soap unintentionally. For example, scrubbing a greasy pan with plant ash under high heat produces soap, as does boiling animal fat with wood ash. Historians have traced these methods back to Babylon and Ancient EgyptNatron (a type of salt), clay and soapstone made from talc are other ingredients documented in Egyptian remains, perhaps as part of their bathing routine — or more ominously, as a chemical result of decomposition, Rasmussen said.
A different approach
The ancient Greeks and Romans took a slightly different approach to bathing. After rinsing with water, they would cover themselves with scented olive oil. They would then use a curved tool called a strigil. To scrape off any remaining dirt.But this may not have been a cleaning technique so much as a concealment technique, Rasmussen said.
“Often, the oils contained plant extracts that had an aromatic scent. So, in those time periods, the oils were used as perfumes,” he said.
Most of these soap mixtures were used to clean textiles, not human bodies. “It was really more of an industrial process than a hygiene issue,” Rasmussen says.
Historians aren’t entirely sure when bathing with soap became routine, but in the Western world, it wasn’t until much later — probably in the early to mid-19th century, Redner estimates.
“It’s a combination of factors that are causing this,” says Redner. For one thing, cheap fats became more widely available. The Industrial Revolution moved soap production from homes to factories. Urban engineers and reformers turned to “cleaning up” immigrant communities, which also facilitated this shift. The Civil War and the Crimean War also put a greater emphasis on sterilization in hospitals and health care.
“All of these factors come together to create a huge market for soap, a market that companies like Procter & Gamble in the United States are beginning to tap into,” Redner said.
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