Plumbing, the Backbone of Civilisation

It’s no coincidence that almost all major cities are built on rivers or coasts. Civilisation was born and thrives on water – from Jericho, to Athens, to London, punctuated along the way by the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Not to mention townships that continue to be successful and make the same old journey towards city-level density.

Water is the most vital requirement for survival; in a matter of days without it, you’ll be counting your final hours. So it stands to reason that you would want water nearby as often as possible. Original settlements near rivers just made perfect sense. Why live anywhere that doesn’t have this thing that you need every single day? You would need an exceptional reason, like complete non-access to water in the region, or remarkably beneficial geographical qualities.

What else needs to drink a lot? Plants. Crops, vegetables, and fruit. Agriculture irrigation demands huge amounts of water. So that’s the food sorted as well – for people and livestock – just by having a river run through your garden.

As civilisation bloomed and flourished, river systems and coastal access took on a whole extra dimension of value: transport. Why haul all of your product over the land, when you can glide over the water?

All of this and more causes a city to draw more people in, gives the city the means to sustain them, and propels civilisation even further forward.

So, what happens if your city gets so big that even the very edges of it become too far away from the water? You could always just go back to carrying the water for hours each day, but surely there’s a better way.

Thankfully, there’s now an awful lot of people that need it, and a lot of people nearby to ask for ideas, innovations, and manpower.

“I have an idea” someone probably said “let’s trick the city into moving the water for us”. Although probably accompanied by very intelligent details and via 100% more Latin.

If it’s not yet clear, we’re talking about Romans. With the power to move water practically anywhere you needed it, you could build a place to live almost anywhere, and grow your current city however big you needed it.

Aqueducts and even underground piping. These marvels of architecture were lined with lead, chosen for its high malleability and water resistance: they could lay it down however they liked, and almost all the water would get to its destination. Its absolutely horrifying toxicity wasn’t yet known though – so at the time, it was perfect! Of course, they didn’t call it ‘lead’. In Latin, they called it ‘plumbum’. And it was so important that an entire profession took its name: Plumbarius. Which eventually evolved into our English ‘Plumber’.

Even well before the height of Rome’s influence, moving water from where it is to where it should be has a strong and rich history. Earlier aqueducts and piping have been found to be almost 6000 years old! And no doubt countless variations of experimental and primitive plumbing took place before even that.

Without plumbing, human life on the scale it is today would be inconceivable, unpleasant, and fundamentally impossible.

If the idea of being part of this long history has caught your attention, and you’d like to become a fully qualified tradesperson, we can help. Contact us at www.newtradescareer.co.uk.