What Did People Use Before Toilet Paper?

What did people use before toilet paper existed? For most of human history, there was no soft white roll waiting beside the toilet. People used whatever was available — water, leaves, moss, cloth, pottery, sponges on sticks, wooden hygiene tools, newspapers, catalogs, and even corncobs. In this episode of Somehow We Survived, we explore some of the strangest toilet solutions in history — from ancient Greek pessoi and ostraka, to Roman public latrines, medieval garderobes, early toilet paper in China, and the first commercial toilet paper of the nineteenth century. Some ancient Greek pottery fragments may even have carried the names of people voted into exile before being reused, turning toilet hygiene into a possible final insult. Today, running out of toilet paper feels like an emergency. For our ancestors, improvising was completely normal. Subscribe to Somehow We Survived for more stories about how humans solved everyday problems before modern technology. #history #toiletpaper #ancienthistory #weirdhistory #SomehowWeSurvived#humanity #survival