Abstract
Abstract
Studies of Roman waste management infrastructure contribute essential evidence about the relative salubrity of the Roman city. Pompeii’s preservation allows an unfettered look at the various disposal strategies that residents employed to maintain standards of hygiene for their homes and within the urban fabric. The excavations in Insulae VIII.7 and I.1, for instance, uncovered examples in nearly every property of features designed to contain and remove liquid, solid, and bodily waste. Here, far from Pompeii’s sewers, toilets channeled waste into cesspits, where liquids drained through the porous soil, leaving solids to be removed periodically. Downpipes connected toilets on upper stories to drains on the ground floor leading to the cesspits. This inventory contributes to our understanding of the form and function of private waste-management features in domestic contexts and, more broadly, strategies of ancient waste management.
Publisher
Oxford University PressOxford
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