On the island of Crete at the Palace of Knossos, the Minoan civilization built an advanced flushing toilet system around 1700 BC. They installed networks of terracotta pipes and cisterns that collected rainwater to power a lever system, flushing waste into neatly lined sewers. This ingenious design separated rainwater from wastewater long before similar systems appeared in Europe. Although their civilization later collapsed due to earthquakes and invasions, leaving these technological feats buri