Soap, or 'sapo' in Latin, is an age-old cleansing agent that dates as far back as ancient Babylon. Throughout time, soap has been a core element of laundry, household, and personal cleansing routines for many civilizations and although soap-making methods have evolved over time, it is still essentially a mixture of fats and oils that have been combined with an alkali.
Origins
Historians aren't in complete agreement about exactly when soap was discovered, yet there is evidence that the Sumerians - an ancient civilization that resided in Southern Mesopotamia, now known as south Iraq - used a soap-like substance to strip grease from cloth and wool before dying them. The substance, which archaeologists discovered in inscribed clay vessels, was slippery and the inscriptions on the vessels described how the Sumerians boiled ashes and fats to form it. Excavated tablets also describe this early method of creating different types of soap-like substances, although their exact usage is
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A historical medical document called the Ebers Papyrus; details how ancient Egyptians combined oils with alkaline salts to create a soap-like substance they used not only for cleansing purposes, but to also treat skin diseases. Throughout the ages civilizations combined fats with alkali as a soap-making method, and soap manufacturing processes still do the very same thing today.
Soap Refinement
In the middle Ages, soap-making became an art that attracted a lot of interest. Craftsmen used trial and error to refine their recipes as they experimented with ashes from plants, animal and vegetable oils, and fragrances. Dedicated guilds were established to safeguard recipe secrets which were passed down amongst generations. With the advent of laundry, shampooing, and shaving soaps, soap became more than an agent for personal cleaning routines.
Product of
Imagine a world without the wheel. Picture a world without math. Now, without knowing time. Well, these are some of the many contributions that the Mesopotamians made to society.
While researching Sumerian culture I learned many interesting things that I was not aware of before. Many little known facts about Sumer will change the way that people feel about other ancient societies. Many advances that are not attributed to Sumeria, often were pioneered by this advanced culture long before others. Most people don't even know much about the origan of the Sumerian culture.
Based on our observations during the separation techniques and some speculation, we were able to identify eight components of our mixture: graphite from the filtration residue, Epsom salt from crystallization, water and acetic acid through distillation, red and orange dye, iron metal, marble chips, and sand.
Ceramics material falls into two major categories that reflect two distinct traditions. The earliest tradition used crushed rock as the tempering material in the manufacture of ceramics. This tradition first appears during the Early Woodland period around 500 B.C. and continues in the northern areas. The second tradition is based upon the use of the ground shell of freshwater mollusks as the tempering material and is usually associated with the prehistoric culture of the Mississippian Period. This first appears in southwestern Michigan around 1000 A.D. and continued until the Historic
Alchin, Linda. "Middle Ages Hygiene." Middle Ages Hygiene. 16 July 2012. Web. 09 Dec. 2013.
Sanitary conditions in the West were practically non-existent. In the cities, horse manure covered the streets. Housewives emptied garbage, dishwater, and chamber pots into the middle of the city streets where free-roaming pigs devoured the waste. The pigs left their urine and feces on the streets. It was not easy to wash clothes. Many people had clothes splattered with manure, mud, sweat, and tobacco juice. Privies, or necessary houses were often to close to the homes with a very noticeable odor on hot and/or windy days. If a family had a kitchen, all the members washed at the sink each day, without soap, rubbing the dirt off with a coarse towel. Eventually, many cold bedrooms had a basin, ewer (pitcher), cup, and cupboard chamber pot. Bed bugs and fleas covered many of the travelers’ beds. “Isaac Weld saw filthy beds swarming with bugs.” These insects followed the travelers, crawling on their clothes and skin.
Make was around starting in the year 10,000 BC. Men and woman both used scented oils and ointments to clean, and get their skin softer. With the oils they would make they would make a type of mask to stop the bad body odors. In 10,000 BC they also used dyes and different type of paints to add color to their body, skin and hair. They would also rouge their lips and cheeks to make them look with more color. People use henna to paint their nail. They would also use a type sustains called kohl to cover/color/darken the eyes and eyebrows. Kohl was made up of crushed antimony, burnt almonds, lead, oxidized copper, ochre, ash, malachite, chrysocolla (a blue-green copper ore) or any combination thereof. The Kohl was applied with a stick and was put on to make almond effect to the eye. This also help to get to less glare from the sun. The most popular colors that the Egyptian used were green and black...
The evolution of cosmetology can be easily traced back to early as civilization times. Back in 10,000 BCE, both men and women in Egypt used oils quite often to hide the bad smells from their body. In addition, ...
Sumeria is one of the ancient civilizations in historical regions in Mesopotamia, which is now modern day Iraq. Historians believe that the area called Sumer was first permanently settled by non -Semitic people who spoke the Sumerian language. The Sumerian civilization took form in the Uruk period (4th millennium BCE). The Sumerian city of Eridu was the world’s first city, where three separate cultures merged – the peasant farmers, nomadic Semitic pastoralists and fisher folks who were the ancestors of the Sumerians. Based on research, historians believe before the Sumerians there was no other known civilization as advanced as the Sumerians. Sumerians were advanced in their technologies, knowledge and development of a society. Sumerians developed and cataloged the brightest stars, and outline zodiacal constellations.
The ancient Egyptians used a number of techniques to improve the look of their pottery. Decorations were incised, painted or stuck on and black coloring was the result of exposing the vessels to smoke. Slip, an often pigmented mixture of water and clay of the consistency of cream, was applied to smooth the surface and color the earthenware. Wash, a mixture of pigment, such as red ochre, and water changed or intensified the color of the pottery. Glazing began during the 4th millennium BCE, mostly blue mezzomaiolica, lead based glazing, until Roman times, when true tin-based faience began to appear. An example of the blue glaze is on the statue of a monkey to the right.
One tablet (ibuprofen) was crushed using mortar and pestle. It is then put into the flask. The content was stirred using a glass stirring rod.
Caustic potash (potassium hydroxide) can be used instead of caustic soda (sodium hydroxide)but is more expensive. The base used to come from wood ash containing potassium carbonate which formed potash as this was not plentiful it made soap a luxury. The cheapest source of the ester is animal and vegetable fats and oils.
These were all naturally occurring substances. No refinement had occurred, and isolation of specific compounds (drugs) had not taken place.
Rinse off the soap using clean water. In the event that you are not using running water from the tap, fetch another bucket/bowl of clean water to wash your hands with.
Peele, Anna. "The Future of Laundry! It's Even More Exciting than You Think." Expanded Academic ASAP. Hearst Communications, n.d. Web. 20 Feb. 2014.