The Romans used pottery as toilet paper?

[Archae]

Ouch ouch ouch!

Ancient Roman artifacts thought to be early gaming pieces may actually have been used as a form of toilet paper, according to a paper in BMJ, the British Medical Journal.

In the paper, Philippe Charlier, an assistant professor in forensic medicine at the Raymond Poincaré University Hospital in Paris, cited, among other things, a Greek proverb stating, “Three stones are enough to wipe one’s arse,” as evidence that such stones were used to clean up after going to the bathroom.

Other scholars have suggested that broken pieces of ceramic – known as ostraka – inscribed with names like Socrates, Pericles and Themistocles have been found in Piraeus and Athens and were used by the Greeks as a way of ostracizing their enemies, after smoothing out the rough edges, of course.



http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/01/roman-game-pieces-really-old-toilet-paper/

[Turbineguy]

1. There was a guy

who would cut pictures of politicians and celebrities out of the newspaper and use them.

[baldguy]

2. .

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

17. This is a perfect reference, but ...

How the fuck do the fucking seashells fucking work?

Thanks, these profanity tickets should do nicely.

[arcane1]

3. This is actually quite fascinating, despite the topic

How much do we really know about the various methods used throughout history?

[Politicub]

4. Those Romans were a tough bunch

They must have had leathery asses to withstand wiping with a pottery shard.

[MiddleFingerMom]

5. Romans achieved a clean bottom the old-fashioned way...

.
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.
.
.
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.
.
.
.
.
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... they urned it.
.
.
.

[rrneck]

6. Okay, that was perfect. nt

[CherokeeDem]

12. Priceless...nt

[jpak]

20. WWWHHahahahahahaha!!!11

[GreenPartyVoter]

7. I had read that they used sponges on sticks.

[MADem]

11. Yes, and they crapped in public, and a servant came round with that sponge/brush on a stick.

Which was used from one ass to the next without too much concern for hygiene....I imagine they must have given it a bit of a rinse...!

That's where I learned they used pee to dryclean their togas....ewwwww!

I saw that on one of those documentaries about "Back in the day..." around the time that the HBO show ROME was running and was very popular...

[GreenPartyVoter]

13. Apprently, they used water that constantly ran by in a trough for

the rinsing, but I would still feel icky about using a shared sponge.

Urine was also used in the animal skin tanning process. I imagine the ammonia is what makes it so valuable? Never heard of it being used in dry cleaning though, or that such a thing even existed so long ago. LOL

[MADem]

14. Here's the process....

It's not really drycleaning though, because they did add a bit-o-water...

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/secondary/SMIGRA*/Fullo.html

They liked that urine--used it as a mouthwash, too (ugh!!!!)


http://www.ehow.com/about_4596013_history-of-mouthwash.html

[GreenPartyVoter]

16. Ooooh.. I so did not need to know about the mouthwash bit. LOL

[UTUSN]

8. It's about "privacy" for me: Would I want to squat next to MFM or whomever during the deed?!1 n/t

[Arugula Latte]

9. Is that where the term "pinch pot" comes from?

[surrealAmerican]

10. They were tough people, those Romans.

k & r & ouch. I guess maybe a person would get used to it in time.

[eShirl]

15. Were they washed and dried for later re-use?

No wonder there were so many public baths.

[pink-o]

18. Once you start amassing these kinds of stories from history

you gotta wonder why humans survived at all, let alone overran this planet 7 billion strong by the second decade of the 21st century!

My species has a lot to answer for, but give us credit: we sure know how to be strong against the worst of it!

[LiberalEsto]

19. Gives 'going to the potty' a whole new meaning.

[geardaddy]

21. ...

[Duer 157099]

22. Kinda appropriate that

this was published in the BM Journal.