ancient.eu/aqueduct/
"The earliest and simplest aqueducts were constructed of lengths of inverted clay tiles and sometimes pipes which channeled water over a short distance and followed the contours of the land. The earliest examples of these date from the Minoan civilization on Crete in the early 2nd millennium BCE and from contemporary Mesopotamia. Aqueducts were also an important feature of Mycenaean settlements in the 14th century BCE, ensuring autonomy against siege for the acropolis of Mycenae and the fortifications at Tiryns. The first sophisticated long-distance canal systems were constructed in the Assyrian empire in the 9th century BCE and incorporated tunnels several kilometres in length. These engineering feats permitted the aqueducts to be constructed in a more direct line between source and outlet. The Babylonians in the 8th century BCE also built extensive and sophisticated canal systems. In the 7th century BCE a wide canal crossed a 280m long bridge to bring water to Nineveh and water was brought through a 537m tunnel to supply Jerusalem. "
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Indus Valley Civilization
Alfred Laliberté's "Les petits Baigneurs," 1915 restored 1992 at Maisonneuve public baths, Montreal, Quebec
The earliest public baths are found in the ruins in of the Indus Valley Civilization. According to John Keay, the "Great Bath" of Mohenjo Daro in present-day Pakistan was the size of 'a modest municipal swimming pool', complete with stairs leading down to the water at each one of its ends.
The bath is housed inside a larger—more elaborate—building and was used for public bathing. The Great Bath and the house of the priest suggest that the Indus had a religion.
Ancient Greece
In The Book of the Bath, Françoise de Bonneville wrote, "The history of public baths begins in Greece in the sixth century B.C.," where men and women washed in basins near places of exercise, physical and intellectual. Later gymnasia had indoor basins set overhead, the open maws of marble lions offering showers, and circular pools with tiers of steps for lounging.
Bathing was ritualized, becoming an art – of cleansing sands, hot water, hot air in dark vaulted "vapor baths," a cooling plunge, a rubdown with aromatic oils. Cities all over Ancient Greece honored sites where "young ephebes stood and splashed water over their bodies."
Roman Empire
Ruins of a Roman bath in Dion, Greece, showing the under-floor heating system, or hypocaust
The first public thermae of 19 BC had a rotunda 25 metres across, circled by small rooms, set in a park with artificial river and pool. By AD 300 the Baths of Diocletian would cover 140,000 square meters (1,500,000 sq ft), its soaring granite and porphyry sheltering 3,000 bathers a day. Roman baths became "something like a cross between an aquacentre and a theme park," with pools, game rooms, gardens, even libraries and theatres. One of the most famous public bath sites is Aquae Sulis in Bath, England.
Dr.Garrett G Fagan, Associate Professor of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies and History at The Pennsylvania State University, has named public bathing as a "social event" for the Romans in his book "Bathing in Public in the Roman World". He also states that "In Western Europe only the Finns still practice a truly public bathing habit." Dr. Fagan has done extensive research on public bathing.