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Archaeologists working at ancient Roman sites often find pottery, but it’s not always easy to know what these objects were used for. Wine store? Food transportation? Tableware? Or were they purely decorative? Experts often disagree. But now a research team working at a Roman site between 450 and 500 AD has definitive proof of that. One of the containers they found was a portable toilet..
The terracotta pot, described on Thursday in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, was found in the remains of a villa near the Italian town of Gerace in Sicily. The pot is round with beveled sides, a foot high and 13 inches wide at the edge. The authors suggest it could have been used sitting on, but more often it was placed under a wooden or wicker chair with a cover over a suitable hole.
Chamber pottery has been found in various ancient archaeological excavations. Recently found one 2700 year old site in Jerusalem; Another is from 1300 BC. Egyptian city of Tell el-Amarna. hopper containers From the sixth century BC It has also been found in Greece.
Only terracotta and bronze vessels have been found, although some documents suggest that Roman chamber vessels may have been made of onyx or gold. Most were described solely by their shape or their location in a home, but there are now a variety of techniques to more precisely determine their function. These researchers did so by searching for human intestinal parasites.
When they first found the pot, it was in pieces, so they had to put the pieces together first. The pot is burnt orange and two wavy lines are drawn on the outside for decoration purposes. Inside, on the bottom and sides of the pot, they found a crust — calcified concretes — that they hoped would help identify what the pot contained. They did some scraping for analysis.
After preparing the sample in an acid bath to separate any organic material from the concretes, they were able to identify the preserved eggs of the whipworm, an intestinal parasite excreted in human feces. It was clear how the jar was used.
Whipworms infect approximately 800 million people worldwide, often in the tropics where access to proper sanitation is limited, but infections also occur in the southern United States. The worm lives in the colon and its eggs are excreted in the feces. They begin to develop outside the body and are transmitted through contaminated hands, soil or oral contact with food. Sometimes the disease, trihuriasis, has no symptoms or only mild diarrhea, but severe cases in children can lead to stunted growth and cognitive problems. The disease can be effectively treated with medication.
Whipworms can be found in dogs, wolves, pigs, and other animals, but the Roman artifact species – Trichuris trichiura – is found only in humans and does not infect any other animals.
“What stands out about the paper is that their method can be improved upon so that we can have a general method for everyone,” said Karl J. Reinhard, professor of environmental archeology at the University of Nebraska, who was not involved in the research. . “It’s simple and something anyone can do anywhere. It can also be applied to museum samples. I encourage the authors to continue this work and develop a method that we can all benefit from.”
Lead author, Sophie Rabinow, Ph.D. The candidate, from the University of Cambridge in England, said there are other techniques to analyze ancient parasites – DNA or protein analysis, for example. However, she said that the acid bath technique is much faster, easier and cheaper, and if the procedure is done properly, it gives very reliable results.
“It’s a good addition to the ceramist’s toolbox,” Ms Rabinow said. “There is a great accumulation of material in archeology” to which these techniques can be applied. “Ceramics are well preserved in many cultures, not just in Rome, and parasites of many species are very well preserved.”
Is there any danger of infection from the nearly 2,000-year-old whipworm eggs?
“No,” said Ms. Rabinow, noting that archaeologists and museum goers don’t have to worry about parasites. “A few months later, they’re done.”
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