Soap Culture History I - Neolithic to Roman Empire
22-06-2023
11:26
Photograph: Ebers Papyrus; It is one of the eight medical papyri dating back to 1900-1200 BC from the Ancient Egyptian Civilization, and is also the longest and the richest in terms of pharmacy. Contains more than 800 recipes, 700 animal, herbal and mineral recipes. Ebers is named after the Ancient Egypt expert George Maurice Ebers. It was found in the lap of a mummy in the ancient Egyptian city of Thebes.
Archaeological data on the practices used by humanity for body cleansing in prehistoric times and whether there were any body cleansing habits are very scarce. Although the existence of yunaks is known as an archaeological find, it is not possible to comment on whether the people of that period had a "physical cleaning" consciousness as we understand it, or with what consciousness they were cleaned.
Neolithic Age
During the neolithic age, when the settled life culture began, temples for gods and goddesses began to be built with the emergence of social organization and city-states. Worship rituals applied to the gods became the elements that would reveal the culture of cleanliness and awareness of cleanliness, both spiritually and physically. The awareness of cleansing will begin with the practices made with the intention of spiritual purification before entering these temples or in preparation for the rituals. The peoples of that period must have washed with water, dressed in clean clothes, applied perfumes, and then performed rituals in their temples in order to get rid of their spiritual impurities. This idea is based on the findings unearthed in archaeological excavations; For example, in many archaeological excavations in Western Anatolia and the mainland of Greece, tools such as pots/pumps/bowls used for purification by water at the entrances of the temples were unearthed. Additionally, shrines were often built on the edge of sacred waters. The consciousness of cleanliness associated with worship has a spiritual side rather than a physical one. The habits of cleanliness must have been common among the wealthy urban nobility, for ordinary people had little or no privilege to enter the temple. The act of cleansing before worship is a culture that continues today.
In the history of humanity, before the discovery of soap, the most commonly used mixture to cleanse the objects and later the body was a mixture of water and ash, in addition to clay, sand, milk, natural soda and sulfur from lakes and water sources are known to have been used.
The "saponification reaction", which is a chemical reaction, can start spontaneously in the natural environment with the combination of oil, ash and water. But mixing these three things roughly is not enough for soap to form by itself. It is essential that this mixture is made in a certain order in the right dimensions, soap making as we understand it requires an artisanal skill.
The feature of the herbal chemical called "saponin", which is found in more than one plant species; It leaves a soap-like permanent foam when mixed with water. It is thought to be in the content of plants used for cleaning purposes throughout history. Saponins also have germicidal effects. Therefore, it is logical that the soap-like solutions obtained in history were used to treat diseases other than cleaning, although the existence of microbes was not known at that time. For example; These plants are celandine and soapgrass, which are mentioned in Hittite cuneiform texts. In the texts, it is stated that the Hittite people used this herb for "cleaning one's self or soul in cleansing rituals" and "eliminating magic and bad dreams". The same texts mention the use of solutions made from barley, sulfur and sunflower for cleaning.
In Neolithic times, there were also areas where water and ash were widely used for cleaning; The process of cleaning oily butcher tools and removing oil stains on raw wool and fabric before dyeing. The more oil on the fabric to be cleaned during the application, the more saponification reaction took place, thus causing better cleaning of the fabric. Possibly, when the cleaning property of the resulting "slippery melt" was understood, this soapy solution must have been used repeatedly until it lost its cleaning properties.
In the periods when we started to establish a settled life culture, as a caustic source used in modern soap making; He must have used the ashes formed by burning various plants or wood, or natural soda and lime from drying lakes, and oils obtained from plants (olive, sesame, etc.) and animals as the oil source. In this way, peoples must have obtained soap-like solutions/soaps, whatever they have, to the extent of the possibilities provided by their geography.
Fertile Crescent Civilizations
Realizing that the mixture obtained from oil, water and ash increased the cleaning function, the Sumerians may have started to prepare soap solutions by directly boiling the oils with lye, although it is not known for certain, but this claim is open to discussion. The earliest known record of soapy solution belongs to the Sumerians. BC in Babylon. There is a tablet dated to 2800 BC, which mentions that the oil was used by boiling it with ash. The word "soap" is not mentioned in the inscription, it is mentioned that the "callamus plant" was used for washing purposes.
The first documented use of soapy solutions is described in a cuneiform tablet found at Girsu (Tallus). According to chemical archaeologist Martin Levy, these melts were used to wash and dye the wool. B.C. In another clay tablet dated to 2200 B.C., a soap-like substance consisting of a mixture of water, potassium and cassia cassia plant oil is mentioned to degrease and clean the fabric; however, it is difficult to argue that the expressions in this recording describe soap in our sense. Before the fabric dyeing process, the lanolin oils in the wool must be removed from the textile, this practice is still done today. In the wool weaving sector, which was an export product for Mesopotamian cities, mostly female workers worked, and the washing process was applied by them.
There is a consensus on the opinion that the peoples of that period did not use the soapy solutions they made for body cleaning, except for fabric cleaning, but they were used to treat diseases. In Nippur, BC. In a Sumerian pharmacological tablet from 2100, there are a series of recipes with soap-like content, it is described that a special solution is prepared by mixing alkali (ash) with substances containing a large amount of natural oil, and this solution is sprinkled on the sick organ, then rubbing with oil.
In a text from the Babylonian period of Nabonidus (556-539 BC), it is mentioned that the ashes of the "uhulu" plant and sesame oil were used for servant girls to wash the stones.
B.C. Although it is claimed that the Phoenicians produced a product thought to be soap with goat fat and wood ash around 600 B.C. and used it as a barter with the Gauls, this claim is not based on solid sources.
Ancient Egyptian Civilization
In Egyptian hieroglyphs, a word called "anzir" was used instead of soap. In Egypt, soda (sodium carbonate) was obtained from lakes dried by the heat of the sun, and additionally they made use of clay or steatite (soapstone). B.C. In the Ebers Papyrus, one of the oldest and most important medical sources of Ancient Egypt, dated to 1534, it is told that a soap-like substance obtained from the mixture of animal and plant oils with alkaline salts was used to treat hair care and skin diseases. It is not known what the Egyptians, the first civilization to use distillation in history, used as vegetable oil, however, it is possible that it was olive oil that was sacred to them.
Ebers Papyrus; It is one of the eight medical papyri dating back to 1900-1200 BC, which has survived from the Ancient Egyptian Civilization. It is also the longest and the richest in pharmacy. In this papyrus, which contains more than 800 prescriptions and 700 animal, herbal and mineral recipes, the methods of preparation and usage of the drugs to be used together with the treatment are also included.
"If I wash with soapwort, if I wash my hands with lye, you will still make me dirty, even my clothes will disgust me"; Old Testament, Job 9:30 and 31. The Israelites used a type of gel mixed with ashes and oil that they could use on the hair. The origin of the word, which is also translated as soap in the Old Testament, was probably a kind of soapy solution passed down from Ancient Egyptian culture to the Jews.
It was thought that the "red heifer" ritual mentioned in the Torah might be a method of obtaining a soapy solution. This ritual, which is applied after the person comes into contact with the corpse, is a kind of "purification ritual"; Considering the materials used (animal fat, ash and herbs), the solution that will emerge at the end of the ritual is an alkaline cleansing slurry. But it can't be called soap. After this stage, provided that a soap craftsman gets to work and gets the measurements right; If the oils in the slurry are extracted, processed and mixed with ashes from the sacrificial fire, then mixed with water as part of the next purification ritual, the result may be soap. Perhaps the inspiration for the first soapy melts from animal fats was based on such an accidental invention, who knows?
Ancient Greek Civilization
There is no evidence that the ancient Greeks had a habit of using soap-like solutions for body cleansing. After plastering their bodies with oil and clay, they brushed with pieces of sand or pumice stone and scraped the layer formed on their bodies with a curved tool called a "strigil". This was followed by bathing in water and oiling/massage with olive oil. The use of olive oil to give vitality and shine to the body was a very common behavior among the ancient Greek and Middle Eastern peoples, especially in the early periods when olive production was not so much, olive oil, a valuable commodity transported to the Greek mainland by sea, was an option that only the king, priests and wealthy nobles could reach.
Resources:
2. Evolution of Cleaning Concept and Practices in Anatolian Civilizations, Şükran Kapak, PhD Thesis, Supervisor: Prof.Dr.İlter Uzel, T.C. Çukurova University Institute of Health Sciences, Deontology and History of Medicine, USA, 2005.
3. Some Herbaceous Plants, Tree Species and Wooden Objects in Hittite Spell Texts; Yusuf Kılıç, Serkan Başol, Journal of Academic History and Thought, Vol:2/Issue:6/August /2015.
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