LAVATORIES, WATER TROUGHS, FOUNTAINS - Più di mille water as it used to be

A presentation of the parts of a water trough – lavatory, and other examples

July 18th, 2023

Fountains, lavatories, water troughs, and combinations of them: the have been for long time the artifacts by which humans and animals got their water
The one in the picture is a rather complete example. It is sited in a very small place, almost deserted during most of the year: Pizzonero, in the Boreca valley. All the functions: water for home use, to drink and for animals are together in a single artifact. In other cases, they can be separate.

But let’s see the parts, indicated by numbers.

1. The support to fill the bucket, just below the water channel.
2. the water trough for animals; it is the basin immediately under the outcome of the water: animals needed clean water to drink.

An analysis of a water trough – lavatory

3. the lavatory; it follows the water trough and receives water from it; some little slime from animals was not a problem, but soap in the drinking water for animal was. The lavatory is divided in two parts; the lower one, to wash, the upper one, to rinse.
4. a threshold where to step on when washing; the leaking of some water was unavoidable, and it would have made the soil very muddy.
5. a syphon, to bring water down, to cages for small animals and vegetable plots; this is clearly a more recent addition.

There is and almost endless variability of these artifacts. Here we can see some others, either complete, as the one described, generally situated inside the villages, or for drinking water only, for humans or animals, also placed in remote areas.