Antiquities Exhibits

The Mesopotamians introduced the world to clay sewer pipes around 4000 BCE, with the earliest examples found in the Temple of Bel at Nippur and at Eshnunna.  They were utilized to remove wastewater from sites, and capture rainwater in cisterns. The city of Uruk also contains one of the first examples of brick constructed latrines, dated from about 3200 BCE. Clay piped plumbing has also been found in the Hittite city of Hattusa, founded in the 6th millennium and abandoned about 1200 BCE. The Indus Valley Civilization also developed public water supplies with a number of advanced features.  In the Indus city of Lothal (c. 2350 BCE), archaeologists discovered houses with their own private toilets connected to a covered sewer network constructed of brickwork held together with a gypsum-based mortar.  Many of the buildings at Mohenjo-daro collected water from roofs and upper story bathrooms that was channeled through terracotta pipes to street drains. There were also public an...

Bronze fountain statuette of Cybele on a cart drawn by lions, Roman, 2nd half of 2nd century C.E. at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. This bronze fountain ornament represents the cult image of the goddess Cybele enthroned on a cart drawn by two lions. Spouts formerly projecting from the open mouths of the lions. The original cart, harness, and thr one no longer survive. The rear left wheel is a 19th century restoration. Originally a Phrygian Mother Goddess, the cult was adopted and adapted by Greek colonists of Asia Minor and spread to mainland Greece and its more distant western colonies around the 6th century B.C.E. Rites included the presence of a divine Phrygian castrate shepherd-consort Attis, who was probably a Greek invention, and was represented by members of a eunuch mendicant priesthood. Rome officially adopted her cult during the Second Punic War (218 to 201 B.C.E.), after dire prodigies, including a meteor shower, a failed harvest and famine, seemed to w...