Potty Training, 2500 Years Ago
You've probably heard of ancient toilets, but even toddlers had their seats
When I was in elementary school, I pondered the idea of becoming an archaeologist because ancient tools and technology always fascinated me. Thanks to the internet, new ancient things blow my mind on a regular basis. Today’s fun find is an ancient Athenian potty chair, circa 600 B.C. Yes, B.C. And it’s not all that different from today’s toddler potties.
Many of us have heard about ancient forms of plumbing, or the public toilets that are essentially one giant open-air outhouse with communal seating. There’s also stories of many ancient cultures having some forms of toilets in their homes — at least among the wealthy. But who ever thinks about how potty training worked 2,500+ years ago? In some ways, it’s been the same probably since time began. And once civilization got to the point where adults had some form of pot to piss in, it only makes sense these same adults had to potty train their toddlers.
One archaeological find from Athens, Greece is a terra cotta potty chair, on display at the Museum of the Ancient Agora in Athens. The book The Athenian Agora claims belonged to a “young aristocrat.” (Of course it did; it’s probably the equivalent of a modern Toto toilet that plays music and costs $$$.) The design is genius; it’s not that different from an overturned plant pot with another pot atop it, with a leg hole area in the top pot for Junior to sit in. Pottery has existed probably almost as long as mankind, as a) clay is readily available in many regions and b) it’s pretty easy to work with. Vessels of all sorts have held liquids of all sorts over the millennia, so why not use a clay vessel as a potty seat?
The fun thing about the potty chair is it looks like a modified version of an ancient Greek high chair (also a stack of terra cotta pots with leg hole for Kiddo).
The farther we move through technological advances, the more I realize the ancients had things pretty well figured out too. At least some things.
(footnote: top image is the ancient potty chair at the Museum of the Ancient Agora.)