[pbhjpbhj]

>sitting on toilets—a recent phenomenon, stemming from the invention of the flush toilet in 1591—might be unhealthy

There's a Roman museum near here that has a model barracks toilet which is basically like a modern compost loo - it's like an enclosed bench with holes to defecate through. I guess you might be supposed to stand on it but it's certainly not presented that way.

I've seen toilets in medieval château and castles with wooden seats on a knee height enclosure too. Doesn't appear to be an invention that followed the flush toilet. Nor can I see how a flush toilet would need a change in posture.

[angusgr]

>Nor can I see how a flush toilet would need a change in posture.

You're definitely correct. South East Asia (at the minimum) has millions of flushable porcelain squat toilets. :)

[bombs]

The ruins of Leptis Magna, Roman ruins dating from 1100 BCE–650 CE, features sit-down toilets.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/libyan_soup/650693182/

[eru]

I have heard people argue, that the Roman toilets were for squatting on top.

[pbhjpbhj]

Like wikipedia.

>the Roman toilets were probably elevated to raise them above open sewers, rather than for sitting.

However in the image http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ostia-Toilets.JPG accompanying one can see that this would mean that the Romans were wasting a lot of well prepared stone building the toilets twice as high as needed (note the extra stone below the opening).

One thought was that this could be an economy of parts, the "seat" and front pieces appear same-dimensioned - but then I noticed that the bottom part has a corner that the top part didn't and so in this instance that theory appears unsound.

Given the Romans amazing engineering prowess I can't see them wasting materials like this in order to make the toilets harder to use.

http://books.google.com/books?id=RIRlPwAACAAJ&printsec=f... appears to be the major ref on Wikipedia and is widely cited in scientific papers but unfortunately I can't find a place to read it online (and don't have a copy!).

Edit: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0715638505?ie=UTF8&tag=... "Latrinae Et Foricae: Toilets in the Roman World" clearly, to me, shows a Roman toilet as a seat on the front (my posterior would fit but my feet wouldn't fit either side of the hole to squat). Review - http://bloggingpompeii.blogspot.com/2009/12/latrinae-et-fori...

[eru]

Thanks for the investigation.

Perhaps the Romans started out squatting, and later changed to sitting. I predict this is the point in time when the rise of the Romans stopped and their fall began. (Tongue-in-cheek.)

[pbhjpbhj]

There's a joke there about tongues in cheeks but I'm too refined to make it.

[yread]

first real flush toilets were probably from 26th century BC en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flush_toilet The Knossos palace on Crete (1700BC) had flush toilets (and 3 separate systems for managing water) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knossos