Life before toilet roll: Hygiene 'wands' from 2,000-year-old toilet reveal how disease spread along the Silk Road

  • Archaeologists found 'personal hygiene sticks' in a latrine dating to 111BC
  • The site had once been a waystation on the busy Silk Road trading route
  • Scientists found parasite eggs on the sticks from at least 1,000 miles away
  • It suggests the Silk Road caused the spread of disease around the world 

It was the famed trade route that saw spices, luxuriant cloths and ultimately wealth flow between the eastern and western worlds.

But a new study of a 2,000-year-old toilet discovered near a desert in north west China has revealed the Silk Road was also responsible for the exchange of something else too – infectious diseases.

While sifting through the contents of a person's bowel movements might be something doctors do to help diagnose their patients, it appears it can also give us a glimpse far back into the past.

Archaeologists have found evidence that diseases were spread over thousands of miles along the Silk Trade route by travellers who passed from east to west. They found parasitic worm eggs in preserved faeces on 'personal hygiene sticks' (pictured) discovered in a latrine at an ancient waystation along the route

Archaeologists have found evidence that diseases were spread over thousands of miles along the Silk Trade route by travellers who passed from east to west. They found parasitic worm eggs in preserved faeces on 'personal hygiene sticks' (pictured) discovered in a latrine at an ancient waystation along the route

WHAT WAS THE SILK ROAD? 

The Silk Road was an ancient network of trade route that ran through central Asia connecting China to the Mediterranean Sea.

It was initially named after the lucrative trade in Chinese silk under the Han Dynasty in around 202BC.

But quickly other precious items such as jade, gold, silver, bronze and spice were also transported initially between China and Egypt, then later to ancient Greece and Rome and eventually to Medieval Europe.

While many sea route were opened up by sailors to transport goods, merchants crossing overland were thought to have travelled by northern and southern routes that bypassed the Takliamakan Desert in north west China.

The northern route took several paths through Kazakhstan, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan.

The southern route ran through the Karakoram mountains that sit on the border of Pakistan, India and China.

They merged again near Merv in Turkmenistan before continuing west to the south of the Caspian Sea.

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Archaeologists examined the preserved faeces on ancient 'personal hygiene sticks', which were used to wipe the backsides of people between 111BC and 109AD.

They found eggs from four species of parasitic worm were present in the ancient droppings left on the hygiene wands.

And it appears at least one of these parasites may have spread along the Silk Road from a location at least 1,000 miles away.

The study suggests that while global travel has made it easier for infectious diseases to spread around the world, the problem has been around for thousands of years.

Dr Piers Mitchell, an anthropologist at the University of Cambridge who led the study, said: 'Until now there has been no proof that the Silk Road was responsible for the spread of infectious diseases.

'They could instead have spread between China and Europe via India to the south, or via Mongolia and Russia to the north.'

The ancient latrine was found at the ancient ruins of Xuanquanzhi in the Tamrin Basin in north west China close to the vast sandy expanse of the Taklamakan desert.

Xuanquanzhi is thought to have been a relay station on the Silk Road, which came to prominence during the Han Dynasty in China, which ruled between 202BC-220AD.

The site was a popular stop with travellers who changed their horses and delivered letters.

Merchants, explorers, soldiers and government officials travelled along the route towards the Middle East and the Mediterranean, taking goods that were in high demand in the west.

The latrine was found at the ruins of Xuanquanzhi on the edge of the Taklamakan desert (shown on map)

The latrine was found at the ruins of Xuanquanzhi on the edge of the Taklamakan desert (shown on map)

The researchers found eggs from the Chinese River fluke in the preserved faeces from the latrine at Xuanquanzhi (pictured). The site would have been too dry to allow the parasites to complete their life cycle, which suggests they had come from a location around 1,000 miles away

The researchers found eggs from the Chinese River fluke in the preserved faeces from the latrine at Xuanquanzhi (pictured). The site would have been too dry to allow the parasites to complete their life cycle, which suggests they had come from a location around 1,000 miles away

While excavating in Xuanquanzhi, Dr Mitchell and his colleagues, whose research is published in the Journal of Archaeological Science Reports, discovered persona hygiene sticks in the latrine.

TEA LEAVES GIVE EARLIEST EVIDENCE OF THE SILK ROAD 

The world's oldest tea leaves have been discovered buried with royal treasures in the tomb of an ancient Chinese emperor who ruled more than 2,150 years ago.

Unearthed in the tomb of Jing Emperor Liu Qi, the tea provides some of the earliest evidence for the ancient Silk Road trade route that grew to stretch across Asia from China to Europe.

It appears Emperor Jing, who was the fourth emperor of the Western Han Dynasty, enjoyed the drink so much he wanted to be buried with a large supply of tea leaves so he could drink it in the afterlife.

Archaeologists discovered the huge stash of tea buds – or tips - in one of the burial pits that surrounded the mausoleum built for the emperor and his wife in Xi'an, Sha'anxi Province, China. 

Writing in the journal Scientific Reports, Dr Houyuan Lu, an archaeologist with the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, and his colleagues described also finding similar tea remains in a tomb in Tibet.

They said this also dates to around 200AD, which is the earliest indication tea was being transported along, and traded on, what later became known as the Silk Road. 

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One end of the sticks were wrapped with cloth, which was then used to clean faeces from around the anus.

Using a microscope, the researchers analysed the faeces and found eggs for roundworm, whipworm, tapeworm and Chinese river fluke.

Chinese liver fluke, which can cause abdominal pain, diarrhoea, jaundice and liver cancer, requires water-logged, marshy areas to complete its lifecycle.

Sitting on the edge of the Talkamakan desert, Xuanquanzhi would have been too dry to allow this parasite to breed and spread.

Instead, the closest area it could have come from is at least 953 miles away and the speices is most common in the Guandong Province, which is 1,242 miles away.

Dr Mitchell said: 'Finding evidence for this species in the latrine indicates that a traveller had come here from a region of China with plenty of water, where the parasite was endemic.

'This proves for the first time that travellers along the Silk Road really were responsible for the spread of infectious disease along this route in the past.'

The latrine was first excavated in 1992 by Chinese archaeologists.

Dr Mitchell said that after 2,000 years most of the faeces had decomposed but they were able to find small samples that had dried onto the cloth of the personal hygiene sticks.

He told MailOnline: 'Our finding of the long distance movement of people with Chinese liver fluke along the Silk Road shows that the route did act as a vector for the transfer of infected people.

This means we can now be much more confident that travellers on the Silk Road were bringing more than silk and other trade goods with them.

The ruins at Xuanquanzhi (pictured) were once a waystation on the Silk Road, providing travellers a place to rest, get fresh horses and pick up supplies before continuing their journey to the west

The ruins at Xuanquanzhi (pictured) were once a waystation on the Silk Road, providing travellers a place to rest, get fresh horses and pick up supplies before continuing their journey to the west

Xuanquanzhi would have been a key point to stop for travellers on the Silk Road trading route (shown on the map above)

Xuanquanzhi would have been a key point to stop for travellers on the Silk Road trading route (shown on the map above)

'They were likely taking many other infectious diseases with them too.'

He said that the Silk Road likely saw the spread of many different diseases as travellers passed along it.

He said: 'The Silk Road was clearly a slow speed version compared with modern travel options, but for its time is was the fastest route to undertake intercontinental travel.

'The parasitic worm Chinese liver fluke, which we found in the study, can only be endemic in eastern and southern China and Korea as it needs water snails and fish to complete its life cycle.

'That means this infected traveller could not have spread it to Europe, for example.

'However, other diseases that can be spread directly from one human to another - such as bubonic plague, leprosy, and anthrax - could potentially also be spread along the Silk Road and infect new populations who had not previously been exposed to those diseases.

The personal hygiene sticks were wrapped in cloth (pictured) and used to clean faeces from the backside after using the latrine. The researchers studied the preserved faeces on the sticks to look for parasite eggs

The personal hygiene sticks were wrapped in cloth (pictured) and used to clean faeces from the backside after using the latrine. The researchers studied the preserved faeces on the sticks to look for parasite eggs

'In a way, the Silk Road moved diseases between continents.'

Scientists have long suspected that global trade routes like the Silk Road may have played a role in the spread of diseases such as the bubonic plague, anthrax and leprosy.

But the new study provides the first hard evidence that the Silk Road was allowing diseases to spread over vast distances even in its earliest days.

Dr Hui-Yuan Yeh, an archaeologist at the Gansu Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology in Lanzhou, China, who was a co-author on the study, said: 'When I first saw the Chinese liver fluke egg down the microscope I knew that we had made a momentous discovery.

'Our study is the first to use archaeological evidence from a site on the Silk Road to demonstrate that travellers were taking infectious diseases with them over these huge distances.'

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