Ancient Roman Trash
Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2017 12:35 am
When workers began digging out the Roman cities torched by Mount Vesuvius,
the exquisite wall paintings, sumptuous villas and golden jewelry they found
quickly grabbed the spotlight. But archaeologists are now looking to a less
glamorous feature of these cities: the garbage.
Over the last few years, a team of researchers has taken a systematic look
at street trash, buckets and even storage containers from Pompeii and other
ruins to understand the relationship between ordinary Romans and their stuff.
The extraordinary preservation of objects by volcanic debris allows for
extraordinary insights into humdrum possessions, the researchers say.
“We’re actually starting to see evidence of people’s choices and how they
dealt with their objects,” says Caroline Cheung, a graduate student at the
University of California, Berkeley, involved in the project. “We get a sense
of how people were using them, how they were storing them, whether they were
throwing them away or keeping them.”
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017 ... /96815766/
the exquisite wall paintings, sumptuous villas and golden jewelry they found
quickly grabbed the spotlight. But archaeologists are now looking to a less
glamorous feature of these cities: the garbage.
Over the last few years, a team of researchers has taken a systematic look
at street trash, buckets and even storage containers from Pompeii and other
ruins to understand the relationship between ordinary Romans and their stuff.
The extraordinary preservation of objects by volcanic debris allows for
extraordinary insights into humdrum possessions, the researchers say.
“We’re actually starting to see evidence of people’s choices and how they
dealt with their objects,” says Caroline Cheung, a graduate student at the
University of California, Berkeley, involved in the project. “We get a sense
of how people were using them, how they were storing them, whether they were
throwing them away or keeping them.”
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017 ... /96815766/