The water on the ground was drained and pumped back through the pipes into the basin, where the cycle would repeat itself.
A basin suspended above the pipes fed water into a nozzle that distributed the water over the user's shoulders. The original design was over 10 feet (3 m) tall, and was made of several metal pipes painted to look like bamboo. This early start was greatly improved in the anonymously invented English Regency shower design of circa 1810 (there is some ambiguity among the sources). The system would also recycle the same dirty water through every cycle. Although the system dispensed with the servant labour of filling up and pouring out buckets of water, the showers failed to catch on with the rich as a method for piping hot water through the system was not available. His shower contraption used a pump to force the water into a vessel above the user's head and a chain would then be pulled to release the water from the vessel. The first mechanical shower, operated by a hand pump, was patented in England in 1767 by William Feetham, a stove maker from Ludgate Hill in London. The water and sewage systems developed by the Greeks and Romans broke down and fell out of use after the fall of the Roman Empire. The Romans not only had these showers but also believed in bathing multiple times a week, if not every day. The ancient Romans also followed this convention their famous bathhouses ( Thermae) can be found all around the Mediterranean and as far out as modern-day England. The depictions are very similar to modern locker room showers, and even included bars to hang up clothing. These rooms have been discovered at the site of the city Pergamum and can also be found represented in pottery of the era. Their aqueducts and sewage systems made of lead pipes allowed water to be pumped both into and out of large communal shower rooms used by elites and common citizens alike. The ancient Greeks were the first people to have showers.
However, these were rudimentary by modern standards, having rudimentary drainage systems and water was carried, not pumped, into the room. There has been evidence of early upper class Egyptian and Mesopotamians having indoor shower rooms where servants would bathe them in the privacy of their own homes. Ancient people began to reproduce these natural phenomena by pouring jugs of water, often very cold, over themselves after washing.
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The falling water rinsed the bathers completely clean and was more efficient than bathing in a traditional basin, which required manual transport of both fresh and waste water. The original showers were neither indoor structures nor man-made but were common natural formations: waterfalls.