DetectingWales.com

Courtesy off BBC News  

Archaeologists have been discovering how Romans lived 2,000 years ago, by studying what they left behind in their sewers.

A team of experts has been sifting through hundreds of sacks of human excrement. They found a variety of details about their diet and their illnesses.
This unconventional journey into the past took the team down into an ancient sewer below the town of Herculaneum.

Along with neighbouring Pompeii, it was one of the settlements buried by the Vesuvius volcanic explosion of 79AD.

In a tunnel 86m long, they unearthed what is believed to be the largest deposit of human excrement ever found in the Roman world. Seven hundred and fifty sacks of it to be exact, containing a wealth of information.

The scientists have been able to study what foods people ate and what jobs they did, by matching the material to the buildings above, like shops and homes.

A street in Pompeii which, like Herculaneum, was covered by a volcanic eruption in 79AD This unprecedented insight into the diet and health of ancient Romans showed that they ate a lot of vegetables.

One sample also contained a high white blood cell count, indicating, say researchers, the presence of a bacterial infection.

The sewer also offered up items of pottery, a lamp, 60 coins, necklace beads and even a gold ring with a decorative gemstone.

But it's the human remains that have most astonished the archaeologists, all going to prove that where there's muck, there's memory.

Do you think it would make a good motion picture. :)

pompeii is well worth a visit !!.............. 8)

It was far better before the eruption though ;D

LOL.....
A volcano erupted in Tonypandy last night causing ten pounds worth of damage ;D

must have been a large eruption then lol

did they eat coins and beads lol

...............sounds like someone had trouble with their ring!  ;)   ;D

ooooooh not nice

I suppose it is hard to lower the tone but you guys have managed it!

They found a load of babies bodies below the brothel too. Romans didnt consider babies as human when they are born and would leave them to die in sewers or fields. Bit like Porth really.

Eric

That was in Buckinghamshire ;)

Ashkelon was the name I remember, yup Buckinghamshire.

Similar stuff in herculaneum and pompeii. Kids were worth less then obviously.

If I'd have written that the moderators would have had the post deleted in seconds.....and yours has remained for 10 hours. What's the secret, Eric?  ;D

Come from Porth I guess

Gillian Mckeith would have a field day with all that poop!

.................and they let you live?  ;D

I did wake up in a field when I was a kid once. Went camping and someone knicked my tent while I was sleeping!

Typical Rhiwgarn activity at the time, nowadays I would have had a machete implanted too!

eric

knicked your tent lol,you must be a heavy sleeper eric lol :D

Machete eh Eric??? 8)

No kidding, I have seen a bloke being chased by a chinese fry cook brandishing a machete around the streets of porth when he refused to pay for his food.

I have had a hard life mate, thats why I live in Llantrisant now. Lower crime rate and I might live to see 50.

Eric

Is this a typo error?  60  ??? surely?  ;D ;D

porth sounds like ammanford lol

In Ammanford they just stab you. In Porth they drag you into a marajuanha growing factory in the town centre and lop off limbs with a big chopper.

Then the traffic wardens clamp your car.

Eric

sounds like fun,can i bring my own chopper :)too many smackheads around here