The First Flush: How Ur and Uruk’s Plumbing Birthed Civilization’s Earliest Diseases

Imagine living in the world’s first true metropolis, surrounded by towering ziggurats and bustling markets, yet constantly threatened by an invisible enemy lurking in the very water you drink. This was the paradoxical reality for inhabitants of River Valley Civilizations, where the groundbreaking engineering of Ur and Uruk created sophisticated plumbing systems that inadvertently became…