How Everything Is Made on Instagram: "Ancient toilets were surprisingly clever, even thousands of years ago. Different civilizations solved the same problem in very different ways, depending on technology, water access, and social customs. In the Indus Valley civilization around 2600 BCE, some of the earliest true toilets existed. Homes had brick-built toilet rooms connected to covered drains. Waste was flushed with water and carried through underground sewer systems into cesspits or waterways.