Sewers/toilets in middle earth?

[Mumriken]

It just recently occured to me, how exactly did elves and men...and dwarves get rid of their waste? Like for example in a city like minas tirith or Rohan. Where did all the waste go? I don't think they were as sophisticated as to be able to create flushing toilets like they used back in greece could they? Also I'm not aware of elven anatomy but looking at the movies elves seem less affected by alcohol. Is it possible that elves generate less waste than men and therefore maybe aren't in need of any sewers etc in their forests? The elves and men of minas tirith seem so clean, yet it must have smelt horrible with what? 10 000 people around...during the dark ages in europe getting rid of waste was a big problem and contributed to the misery in the form of rats spreading diseases. I'm sure some of you have dwelt on this before and could enlighten me.

[Galadriel55]

My solution is... Tolkien was above such mundane things.

When I was... 5? 6? ans my mother read LOTR to me, one of the main questions that bothered me was how come the book follows the life of the Fellowship for days on end and it doesn't say that they went to the bathroom or took a nap or had a snack even once! Did they walk non-stop for all thoe days without going to the bathroom?! ...This always made me laugh ever since I "got" it. And your question made me think of that.

[Mumriken]

I'm not talking about the fellowship or individual people LOL...I'm talking about all the cities with tons of people. Like if you look at Europe ALL big cities are close to water. Mnas Tirith and Rohan are in the middle of nowhere. Lothlorien is in the middle of a forest. I don't think this is much more mundane than talking about art in middle earth or catapults or whatever. Fact is that if people in middle earth had and used their butts. The living conditions in the forests and in places like Minas Tirith must have been horrible. Yet in the movies it all looks so clean...did you know that perfume was used mainly by women during the 18th century to hide their atrocious stench. People today take for granted showers and toilets, but 500 years ago almost nobody had a toilet. If Tolkien never thought of this it's a big flaw in his fictional world. The reason the dark ages were so dark was because of the lack of ways to get rid of waste. The cities smelt of ****...I guess most elven, men and dwarf cities did too

[Lollipop010900]

Well, maybe they DIDNT have... ways to get rid of 'waste' but it is hard to smell through a television screen and maybe they just didn't bother to show all that sort of stuff in the movies and there was no reason to mention it in the books.

[Mithalwen]

As it happens I am just reading a book on the Middle Ages which offers various solutions which I will type up if still needed by the time I get my home computer working again. However LOTR is hardly alone in not mentioning it .. I don't know that we lose much by not knowing that Gandalf was the Middle Earth equivalent of "Dad's Army" 's Private Godfrey.

[blantyr]

It's not just Tolkien and Middle Earth where these questions are not talked about. In 1863, 150,000 plus people got together in Gettysburg Pennsylvania, one of many such meeting held in this time frame. While waste disposal was surely a problem, the Civil War academics have been able to find no records to speak of saying how it was handled.

It is well established, though, that more soldiers died of disease in the Civil war than enemy action. That's been true historically in all but the most recent conflicts.

Not that Tolkien had to push that particular theme. He had enough themes going.

[Lalwendë]

Social history is one of my 'things', and I know a little about toilets

Firstly, a fact you may be interested in is that even 'civilised' people often had appalling habits. The great palace of Versailles was apparently so filthy that women's gowns would be stained in excreta if they didn't hold them up while walking along the passageways. Louis XIV had to ask that residents clean the faeces out of the corridors once a week.

However, other people were often very clean. It seems that if people had the will, they could find the way. Every British castle has a 'garderobe' (it is compulsory to pose for a photo while sitting on one) which would empty into either moat or cesspit. And most old homes still have a cesspit hidden somewhere - the house I grew up in had one right up to the mid 1980s, when it overflowed, and that was when we finally got connected to the mains sewers. Earth or compost toilets are common for those who seek to be green. You simply use one until full, seal it for a year, then use what's left as compost. And back in the 1800s one of the jobs my ancestors who lived on the canal boats did was carry vegetables from the countryside into Liverpool and carry the 'nightsoil' back out again, in order to make the fields grow more veg.

Anyway. This all shows there were many and various ways of dealing with waste should they have wished to do so and not live like they did in Versailles. So no doubt the good folks of Middle-earth knew how to handle such things and it simply wasn't an issue that needed describing!

[davem]

Its interesting to consider the reality of sanitation in the Medieval world. There's an account of one individual, a Roger the Raker, given in 'Life on the Middle Ages' by Martyn Whitock.

Faced with the need to remove household toilet waste, some turned to piping it into the unused cellars of unwary neighbours.....More often householders dug cesspools in their yards & constructed latrines over them. One such enterprising Londoner was Roger 'the Raker'. Unfortunately, over the years this pit filled to capacity & rotted the floorboards. When Roger eventually plunged through these floorboards & drowned in his own accumulated excrement, it raised questions not only about the quality of London carpentry but also about the way in which health & well-being in the Middle-ages were affected by the sanitation of the time.

[Tuor in Gondolin]

Given Roman sophisticaton with plumbing and delivery of fresh water,
I don't see the problem of Numenorean citties handling this problem.
And there is the placing of most Middle-earth cities by rivers and/or
oceans. Gondor, Rivendell, Esgaroth, etc.
And there's the spreadout nature of less urban polities, like
Rohan and the Shire.

Now with ents I don't think disposal isues are an especial problem.
Reuse and recycle.

[Mithalwen]

The book I am reading is called the Time Traveller's Guide to medieaval england with lots of stuff about Gongfermours, privies communal latrines and the like but also the gen the King of the day had hot and cold running water - so I don't see that it is impossible that Elrond had plumbing!

Minas Tirith was surrounded by the Pelennor Fields which was farm land when it wasn't a battle field. Fertiliser one obvious use as well as use in cloth fulling and leather tanning. As well as the likes of Earth closets, they may have ha.d a reed bed system (bet the Lorien and Mirkwood elves could have them) which is superbly efficient and transforms raw waste into pure water.

There is a splendid Garderobe in the Constable's house in Christchurch near the Priory. It overhangs the mill stream.