2000 year old roman poop gives detailed info of the diet of the times!

Source

Researchers sifting through the 2000 year old sewers of Herculaneum, which was buried by an eruption from nearby Mt Vesuvius many moons ago, has shown scientists some of the typical delicacies eaten by those of ancient rome.

The article contains some nice images of the sewers and the excavation in progress.

Made for quite an interesting read!

Your thoughts people?

Peace

If they find any corn then I might be interested. Besides that, kind of gross. But, one man's waste is another man's treasure.

reply to post by w3nd1g0


Yea neat. But they didn't tell us much. I wonder if eating so much mice had anything to do with the plauge. i mean, plague didn't start in Rome, but they always blame it on mice in England. It spread to Rome later. I think towards the end of the empire.

Maybe poor sewage also contributed. Everyone pooping in the same hole like that.

Doesn't sound like they were getting many whole grains or fresh vegetables. Maybe thats another reason the plague spread so easy. Malnutrition.

Interesting find.

archaeologists sift through tons of 2,000-year-old excrement

When those archaeologists decided to become archaeologists I bet they weren't expecting to sift through ancient "shift".

I'm curious what great finds they will discover hidden in this old Roman poop...
And how relevant it will be for us today..other than what the Romain diet consisted of.

reply to post by siren8


nah... not mice mate... twas rats that were to blame.. and not even the rats is a true statement.. the plague was carried on fleas on the back of rats originally from the orient on ships carrying textiles and such.

anyway.... im not sure i could stomach a mouse steak with a fig jue on a bed of sea urchins! ewwww

peace

Uh . . . we have Roman cookbooks still in existence (among other sources). In fact, I own a book called Roman Cookery that gives a great deal of insight into what Romans rich and poor ate . . . but dig through poop! Gotta do something with those doctorates.

S & F

This is exactly the kind of topic which attracted me to ATS in the first place.
POOP

Yes poop. But No, not just any poop but old poop!

Great find.

i was having a sh!tty day till i read this it will be intresting to find out if their is any food e.g fruits or vegetables that have been wiped out in the last 2000 years in her picnic bar

Middens and sewers are a goldmine to archaologists like animal scat is to biologists. What we know of ancient cultures to date mostly comes from these types of finds....beside, the bacteria in the poo is long dead, what remains is just a gravely mix.

Very cool article. A while back we went through a kick of trying to recreate ancient cuisine. I actually tried to make some garum in the garage a few years ago. Man, that was the worst smell I can imagine. I had to toss it out before it was ready. I DON'T recommend you try that at home. Just use asian fish sauce or worcestershire instead.

Originally posted by The_Phantom
If they find any corn then I might be interested. Besides that, kind of gross. But, one man's waste is another man's treasure.

edit on 16-6-2011 by The_Phantom because: (no reason given)

I would be EXTREMELY interested if they found any corn. Corn is a New World plant. If they were to detect it's presence in Europe prior to the discovery of the New World, then that would really send historians and anthropologists back to the drawing boards.

J.

Originally posted by J-in-TX
A while back we went through a kick of trying to recreate ancient cuisine. I actually tried to make some garum in the garage a few years ago. Man, that was the worst smell I can imagine. I had to toss it out before it was ready. I DON'T recommend you try that at home. Just use asian fish sauce or worcestershire instead.

Ha, me too! Did you do it the real way? I don't think I'd have the stomach for that. The Garum I made was a quick version using anchovies, sea salt, oregano and sapa. Holy hell was it disgusting.

look at the picture. they are eating grapes while sifting through poo... gross lol

reply to post by Boreas


I tried it the old fashioned way, NOT RECOMMENDED! I got some small whole fish, I think I used smelt, and soaked them in wine for an hour or so and poured off the wine and covered them in salt. By the second day out-gassing had blown the lid off of the container and the smell was attracting cats, turtles, birds, etc.

The smell was so bad I didn't want to put it in the trash so I just dumped them in the creek. The turtles were having a feast.

I still want to try some. Maybe I can find an online vendor.

J.

Originally posted by J-in-TX
reply to post by Boreas

 

I tried it the old fashioned way, NOT RECOMMENDED! I got some small whole fish, I think I used smelt, and soaked them in wine for an hour or so and poured off the wine and covered them in salt. By the second day out-gassing had blown the lid off of the container and the smell was attracting cats, turtles, birds, etc.

The smell was so bad I didn't want to put it in the trash so I just dumped them in the creek. The turtles were having a feast.

I still want to try some. Maybe I can find an online vendor.

J.

EWWWWW!!!!!!!!!! That sounds horrible.. I have a hard time dealing with bad smells at the best of time! (reaches for the pot pouri!)

I must admit i am not that adventurous when it comes to food.

Maybe this guy can make me a "Classic" Roman Burger...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Originally posted by blackrain17
Maybe this guy can make me a "Classic" Roman Burger...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Yeah lol.. I posted this the other day as a duplicate by accident.. I actually found that story first then went a poop-a-hunting lol

I found that quite an interesting read. burgers made from sludge derived from human excrament! ewwwwww but could actually be a salvation to third world countries... not that we would tell them what it was made of... as that would probably kill the appitite of even the most hungry!

Still... cant be any worse the quorn!!!

There have also been Dentists who have examined teeth of some skulls found in Herculaneam. They've said that those people had few cavities. Oh well, didn't eat the junk foods we eat. I've also read that dough (like being grind with sand) can cause cavities.

Did anyone else think that one of the girls would have grabbed one of those grapes without thinking and eaten 2000 year old crap? Now when she says this tastes like ****, she will know what she's talking about.
But i would never consider staring at crap all day to be interesting, if i wanted to do that i would watch disney movies.