Source: The Wall Street Journal
For many people, the perfect July Fourth weekend includes three All-American ingredients: fireworks, a barbecue and a pool party. We share the first two emblems of national identity with the Chinese and the Australians. Only the third, the backyard swimming pool—in John Cheever’s words, “that quasi-subterranean stream that curved across the county”—is indelibly American, a ubiquitous symbol of suburbia.
Despite appearances, the swimming pool has been around for millennia. The first known one was built by the Harappans, a civilization based in the Indus River Valley that flourished around 2600 B.C.
Dubbed the Great Bath because of its considerable size and technological sophistication, the solid brick pool occupied a focal place in the now deserted city of Mohenjo-Daro in what has become modern Pakistan. Although Harappan script remains indecipherable, archaeologists believe that the Great Bath was used for religious rites and ritual purification.
The ancient Egyptians, by contrast, built swimming pools because they loved the sport and thought it was good exercise for the body. So did the Athenians under the laws of Solon, which required every boy to learn to swim. Plato believed that swimming lessons helped teach young people how to be responsible citizens.
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