No photograph is shown for this exhibition. The museum displays an image only where it can show the object honestly.
About this date
Babylonian clay cylinders from about 2800 BCE record a recipe combining fat and ashes. Whether it was used for washing the body or for cleaning wool is interpreted, not certain.
About credit
Several ancient cultures made cleansing mixtures. The Babylonian record is the oldest surviving written one, but it is not evidence of a single invention.
Chapter II
The world before
Life before Soap
People washed with water, sand, oils and plant extracts, which cleaned poorly and left grease on skin and fabric.
II
The human achievement
How it came about
The cylinders describe boiling fats with ashes. This chemical reaction, now called saponification, makes soap. Greeks and Romans mostly cleaned with oil and a scraper; soap-making became widespread in the Middle Ages, with centres in Syria, Italy, Spain and France.
III
Understanding the invention
How it works
Soap, explained in two steps.
01
Step 01 of 02
Fat meets alkali
Ashes provide an alkali. When it reacts with fat, it creates soap molecules.
Fat meets alkali
Why it cleans
IV
The transformation
What changed for humanity
Health
Hand-washing is one of the best-supported ways to prevent infection, a point made clear in the 19th century.
Industry
Soap and textile manufacturing grew together.
Regular washing reduces the spread of disease. Over centuries, soap became one of the most effective and inexpensive public health tools.
V
Before and after
Life before and after Soap
Before
Rinsing, beating and trampling.
After
Lathering to lift grease.
On larger screens, drag the divider (or use the arrow keys) to give more room to the world before or after.
VI
Its legacy
What came after
MHI 026
Soap
Beyond the collection
Germ theory
Understanding why washing works came with the 19th century work of Semmelweis, Pasteur and Lister.
Beyond the collection
Detergents
Synthetic cleaners follow the same chemical principle.
VII
Human stories
The people and the moments
Hand-washing and childbed fever
In the 1840s, Ignaz Semmelweis in Vienna found that mortality in a maternity ward dropped when doctors washed their hands in chlorinated lime. His findings were not widely accepted until later.
Where accounts differ, this museum follows the documented record and says so.