Toilets: High-tech, ancient or made of gold

This square block of limestone with a hole in the middle is a toilet that was part of a magnificent royal estate in the 7th century B.C., according to the Israeli Antiquities Authority. The 2,700-year-old private toilet was discovered in October 2021. Underneath it, archaeologists found a septic tank hewn out of the rock, reportedly a rare find because only rich people could afford toilets.

The oldest toilets found to date were built by the Sumerians in Mesopotamia between 3,500 and 3,000 B.C. This photo shows ancient Roman toilets on the Leptis Magna archaeological site in Libya. For the Romans, going to the bathroom was far from a private affair, it was a social event. The latrines — they had no partitions — offered space for 60 people all at once.

The oversized toilet in the building's facade, designed by French designer Philippe Starck, is obviously a sculpture not meant to be used. The huge toilet bowl is an advertising gimmick for a German manufacturer in Hornberg in southern Germany. From the rim, visitors have a view of the Black Forest. The Western ceramic toilet bowl is not necessarily the standard everywhere in the world, however.

Toilets in Asian countries are usually of the squatting kind, which has two advantages: the posture facilitates bowel movements and there is no unsanitary toilet seat. Paper for wiping is not a must, either: in many countries, including in the Arab world, running water is provided — and preferred.

Japan tops the list of high-tech Western flush toilet technology, from automatic air freshener features to heated seats, inbuilt stereo music systems and of course WiFi.

In Japan's capital, Tokyo, some public toilets are transparent — the wall panels only become opaque when the toilet is in use. The Japanese city of Ichihara is home to the world's largest public toilet, a glass cubicle with a lavatory on a 200,000-square-meter site. It is for women only, and the designer is none other than Sou Fujimoto.

The above toilets are located in southern Tunisia, in the middle of the Chott el Djerid in Tunisia. The salt lake served a movie location for the childhood home of Luke Skywalker, one of the main protagonists in the Star Wars films.

This toilet is a work of art. Dutch star architect Rem Koolhaas designed the unisex toilet in 2006 for the "A Star is born" art project in Groningen.

The Austrian-born architect and artist Friedensreich Hunderwasser designed this bathroom in his typical quirky, colorful and playful style. It is just one room in a building he gave the New Zealand town of Kawakawa, where he lived for many years until his death in 2000.

Tourists visiting scenic spots in Inner Mongolia will find this toilet in Xiangsha Bay, China's first resort in the very east of the Kubuqi Desert. More than 40% of the world's population lacks adequate hygienic sanitary facilities. The UN launched World Toilet Day (WTD) in 2001 to draw attention to the problem. "There will be no sustainable future without toilets," the website says.

In 2020, NASA spent $23 million (€20 million) on two toilets in space — the most expensive toilets ever. Unlike the predecessor model (pictured is the 2003 toilet in the Russian "Zvezda" module at the International Space Station ISS), the new ones are also designed for women.

In 2016/17, visitors to the Guggenheim Museum in New York got to use this 18-karat gold toilet entitled "America," installed as a sculptural performance by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan. "Whatever you eat, a two-hundred-dollar lunch or a two-dollar hot dog, the results are the same, toilet-wise," the artist argued — and people waited in line to use it. The artwork was stolen in 2019.