Bathing is the act of scrubbing the body with a liquid, most often water or an aqueous solution, or immersing the body in water. It’s used for personal cleanliness, religious rituals, and medicinal purposes. Sunbathing and sea bathing are also referred to as “sunbathing” and “sea bathing” by analogy, especially as a leisure pastime.

When water is scarce, or a person is not physically capable of taking a standing bath, a wet towel or sponge can be used, or the individual can splash water over their body. In hospitals, a sponge bath is typically performed, in which one person washes another with a sponge while the person being washed stays in bed.

Bathing may take place everywhere there is water, whether it is warm or cold. It can happen in a bathtub or shower, as well as in a river, lake, water hole, pool, the sea, or any other body of water. The act’s name might change. For example, a religious ceremonial bath is frequently referred to as immersion or baptism, while the use of water for medicinal reasons is referred to as hydrotherapy or water treatment, and swimming and paddling are two recreational water activities.

Societies have created ways to provide water to population centers throughout history.

Bathing is the oldest daily practice that may be traced back to the ancient Indians. They had rigorous personal hygiene routines, including three daily showers and washing. These are documented in grihya sutras, which are still used in some communities today.

For personal hygiene, Ancient Greece used tiny bathtubs, washbasins, and foot baths. The oldest baths were discovered at the palace complex at Knossos, Crete, and the magnificent alabaster bathtubs unearthed in Akrotiri, Santorini, in the mid-2nd millennium BC. Asaminthos (v), a term meaning bathtub, appears eleven times in Homer. This Linear B term comes from an Aegean suffix -in- being attached to an Akkadian loan word with the root namsû as a valid Mycenaean word (a-sa-mi-to) for a type of vessel that could be found in every Mycenaean palace (“washbowl, washing tub”). As a result, this opulent aspect of Mycenaean palace culture was definitely imported from the Near East. For relaxation and personal cleanliness, the Greeks built public baths and showers within gymnasiums. The word gymnasium is derived from the Greek word gymnos, which means “naked.”

Ancient Rome built a network of aqueducts to deliver water to all of the major cities and population centers, as well as interior plumbing with pipes terminating in dwellings as well as public wells and fountains. Thermae was the Roman term for public baths. The thermae were not only baths; they were major public works that included cold, warm, and hot baths, chambers for education and discussion, and generally one Greek and one Latin library.

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