ARCHAEOLOGY RELATED TO EVERYDAY ROMAN LIFE

KITCHEN AND DINING IMPLEMENTS FROM ANCIENT ROME

Ancient Roman bread oven

Items found in ancient Greek and Roman kitchens included vessels for storing olive oil; bowls for mixing wine and water; bronze strainers for removing grape skins and seeds; and small bowls for salt and snacks. There were also ladles and large bowls for eating and serving food; mortars and pestles for grinding up food; and saucepans, baking pans and frying pans, all made out of bronze, for cooking food. Women and slaves both did the cooking. Women normally didn't fetch water, but when they did they sometimes carried the vessels sideways on their head to the well and upright on the way home. [Source: “Greek and Roman Life” by Ian Jenkins from the British Museum]

Glass vessels found in Pompeii included bowls, saucepan-like vessels perhaps used to serve dinner and bottles and small jar probably used as storage vessels. Dr Joanne Berry wrote for the BBC: “Glass vessels were relatively rare in antiquity, becoming more readily available with the development of glass blowing towards the end of the first century B.C. From that time, the increased speed of production greatly increased the number of glass vessels in circulation. A large number of glass vessels have been found at Pompeii, probably manufactured locally. Glass would have been popular because it was cheap, resistant to heat and did not contaminate its contents with bad tastes or smells. Its smooth, impermeable surface meant it could be cleaned easily, allowing it to be re-used (which was not always possible with unglazed ceramic vessels).” [Source: Dr Joanne Berry, Pompeii Images, BBC, March 29, 2011 |::|]

In 2010, Bulgarian archaeologist Nikolay Ovcharov announced that he had found an ancient Roman cooking stove in the ancient Thracian city of Perperikon in modern Greece. cut right into the stones of the rock city in the A.D. 3rd-4th century. According to novinite.com: “The stove consists of a lower part, a hearth, whose ceiling has two holes that let through some fire; the ceramic cooking vessels would be placed on top of the holes. The stove was found while archaeologists were excavating 100 meters of the fortress wall of Perperikon. The stronghold protected what is believed to have been a palace-sanctuary harboring the ancient temple of Dionysus. Other artifacts found at the site included a lamp with the image of a naked dancer, bronze and silver ornaments, lead seals used by of local rulers. [Source: novinite.com, May 2010]

Websites on Ancient Rome: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Rome sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Late Antiquity sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; BBC Ancient Rome bbc.co.uk/history; Perseus Project - Tufts University; perseus.tufts.edu ; Lacus Curtius penelope.uchicago.edu; The Internet Classics Archive classics.mit.edu ; Bryn Mawr Classical Review bmcr.brynmawr.edu; Cambridge Classics External Gateway to Humanities Resources web.archive.org; Ancient Rome resources for students from the Courtenay Middle School Library web.archive.org ; History of ancient Rome OpenCourseWare from the University of Notre Dame web.archive.org ; United Nations of Roma Victrix (UNRV) History unrv.com

Romans Used Non-stick Cookware 2,000 Years Ago

in 2016, archaeologist said that had found evidence that the Romans used non-stick pans — fragments of pots with a thick, red, slippery coating — to cook meaty stews some 2,000 years ago at a Roman pottery dump near Naples. It was first the first hard evidence of non-stick suggested in a first-century cookbook entitled De Re Coquinaria. Discovery News reported that the fragments of cookware, known as Cumanae testae or Cumanae patellae – meaning pans from the city of Cumae – were found 19 kilometers west of Naples and were dated between 27 B.C. and A.D. 37. [Source: Sarah Griffiths, dailymail.co.uk, May 18, 2016 +++]

food crockery

De Re Coquinaria said the easy-care cookware was particularly good for making chicken stews and was likely exported across the Mediterranean to North Africa, France and Britain. Professor of Greek and Roman art, Giuseppe Pucci hypothesized that Cumanae testae evolved into what’s known as Pompeian Red Ware – pottery with a thick red-slip coating on the inside. Analysis has shown the composition of the pottery is different to ‘Red Ware’ found in Pompeii, which had a lesser quality shiny, or non-stick coating. Modern-day, non-stick pots and pans use substanced called polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), of which Teflon is one kind. Generally the more layers of PTFE sprayed or rolled on, the higher the quality of non-stick coating. +++

Cumae was one of the first Greek colonies in Italy, founded in the eight century B.C., with Roman soldiers conquering the city in 228 B.C. In Roman mythology, there is an entrance to the underworld located at Avernus, a crater lake near Cumae, and was the route Aeneas used to descend to the Underworld. The Romans were not the first to use non-stick technology. Researchers from Dartmouth college found that Mycenaean Greeks used non-stick pans to make bread more than 3,000 years ago. Mycenaean ceramic griddles had one smooth side and one side covered with tiny holes. The bread was likely placed on the side with the holes, since the dough tended to stick when cooked on the smooth side of the pan. These holes seemed to be an ancient non-sticking technology, ensuring that oil spread evenly over the griddle. +++

Archaeologists Search Through Roman Excrement and Drains

Duncan Kennedy BBC, Archaeologists excavating Herculaneum near Pompeii “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. In a tunnel 86 meters 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. [Source: Duncan Kennedy, BBC, July 1, 2011]

“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. 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.”

A study of objects lost down the drains in the bathhouses from the Roman Empire reveals that people did all kinds of things there. They bathed, of course, but they also adorned themselves with trinkets, snacked on finger foods and even did needlework. "For the Romans, the baths weren't just a place to get clean, but this larger social center where a variety of activities were taking place," said study researcher Alissa Whitmore, a doctoral candidate in archaeology at the University of Iowa, who reported her findings at the annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America in Seattle. [Source: livescience.com, January 18, 2013]

Roman garbage

Livescience reported: “Whitmore examined drain finds from 11 public and military baths in Italy, Portugal, Switzerland, Germany and Britain, all dating between the first and fourth centuries. Unsurprisingly, she found strong evidence of objects related to bathing, such as perfume vials, nail cleaners, tweezers and flasks for holding oils and other pampering products. On the less-relaxing side of things, evidence shows medical procedures may have occasionally occurred in the baths, Whitmore found. Researchers found a scalpel lodged in one drain. And in the Caerleon baths in what is now Wales, archaeologists uncovered three adolescent and two adult teeth, suggesting bathhouse visitors may have undergone some dentistry, too.

“Visitors also took their meals in the baths, judging by the fragments of plates, bowls and cups found swept into drains. At Caerleon, bathers snacked on mussels and shellfish, Whitmore said, while baths in Silchester, in the United Kingdom, showed traces of poppy seeds. Bones left behind reveal that Roman bathers enjoyed small cuts of beef, mutton, goat, pork, fowl and wild deer. "Ancient texts talk about finger food and sweets, but don't really talk about animals," Whitmore said. "That was interesting to see."

“Archaeologists have also found signs of gaming and gambling, including dice and coins, in various bathhouses. Perhaps most surprising, Whitmore said, researchers found bone and bronze needles and portions of spindles, suggesting that people did textile work in the baths. “This work likely wouldn't have happened in the water, she said, but in dressing rooms or common areas that had seating. The needles may have belonged to bathers who brought needlework to pass the time, or employees may have brought the sewing equipment, offering tailoring or other services at the sites while bathers relaxed, Whitmore said.

“Among the sparkliest finds in the drains were pieces of jewelry. Archaeologists have found hairpins, beads, brooches, pendants and intaglios, or engraved gems, in bathhouse drains. A number of these finds definitely come from pool areas, Whitmore said. "It does seem that there's a fair amount of evidence for people actually wearing things into the water," she said. “Bathers may have held onto their jewelry in the pools to prevent the valuables from being stolen, Whitmore said. Or perhaps vanity inspired them. "It's really a place to see and be seen," Whitmore said. "It makes sense that even if you had to take off your fancy clothes, you would still show off your status through your fancy jewelry." Unfortunately, dips into hot and cold water would have loosened jewelry adhesives and caused metal settings to expand and contract. As a result, a number of unlucky Romans emerged from the baths considerably less bedecked than when they entered....One constant she's already found, she said, is the presence of women, even at baths on military bases. "It adds further evidence that Roman military forts aren't entirely these really masculine areas, but a much wider social atmosphere than we tend to give them credit for," Whitmore said.”

Ancient Roman Food

carbonized bread from Boscoreale near Pompeii

Dr Mike Ibeji wrote for the BBC: “The diet of the inhabitants of Vindolanda [in Britain] was pretty varied. Within the Vindolanda tablets, 46 different types of foodstuff are mentioned. Whilst the more exotic of these, such as roe deer, venison, spices, olives, wine and honey, appear in the letters and accounts of the slaves attached to the commander's house; it is clear that the soldiers and ordinary people around the fort did not eat badly. We have already seen the grain accounts of the brothers Octavius and Candidus, demonstrating that a wide variety of people in and around the fort were supplied with wheat. Added to that are a couple of interesting accounts and letters which show that the ordinary soldiers could get hold of such luxuries as pepper and oysters, and that the local butcher was doing a roaring trade in bacon. [Source: Dr Mike Ibeji, BBC, November 16, 2012 ]

Carbonized eggs and bread have been found in excavations in Pompeii. Dr Joanne Berry wrote for the BBC: “ Such finds are very rare, since organic materials generally have not survived. There is only limited evidence of goods such as food, wooden furniture and cloth (for clothes, or drapery) that were essential to everyday life, yet were made of perishable materials. It does appear from the available evidence, however, that the inhabitants of Pompeii had a varied diet. Other preserved foods that have been discovered include bread, walnuts, almonds, dates, figs and olives. Many animal bones (sheep, pig, cattle), fish bones and shells (scallop, cockle, sea urchin, cuttlefish) also have been uncovered.” [Source: Dr Joanne Berry, Pompeii Images, BBC, March 29, 2011]

Joel N. Shurkin wrote in insidescience: “Archaeologists studying the eating habits of ancient Etruscans and Romans have found that pork was the staple of Italian cuisine before and during the Roman Empire. Both the poor and the rich ate pig as the meat of choice, although the rich got better cuts, ate meat more often and likely in larger quantities. They had pork chops and a form of bacon. They even served sausages and prosciutto.... Besides the meat, there would be vegetables that looked little different from what we eat, said Angela Trentacoste of the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom. Except for grain, which was imported in huge quantities from places like North Africa, everything was locally grown.... Pizza had yet not been invented.” [Source: Joel N. Shurkin, insidescience, February 3, 2015 +/]

Determining What Romans Ate From Their Skeletons, Garbage and Feces

Roman-era toilet in Ephesus

Stephanie Pappas wrote in Live Science: ““To find out, she and her colleagues analyzed portions of bones from the femurs of 36 individuals from two Roman cemeteries. One cemetery, Casal Bertone, was located right outside the city walls. The other, Castellaccio Europarco, was farther out, in a more suburban area. The skeletons date to the Imperial Period, which ran from the first to the third century A.D., during the height of the Roman Empire. At the time, Killgrove told LiveScience, between 1 million and 2 million people lived in Rome and its suburbs. [Source: Stephanie Pappas, Live Science, March 1, 2013 ^^]

“To determine diets from the Roman skeletons, the researchers analyzed the bones for isotopes of carbon and nitrogen. Isotopes are atoms of an element with different numbers of neutrons, and are incorporated into the body from food. Such isotopes of carbon can tell researchers which types of plants people consumed. Grasses such as wheat and barley are called C3 plants; they photosynthesize differently than mostly fibrous C4 plants, such as millet and sorghum. The differences in photosynthesis create different ratios of carbon isotopes preserved in the bones of the people who ate the plants. ^^

“Nitrogen isotopes, on the other hand, give insight into the kinds of protein sources people ate. “We found that people were eating very different things,” Killgrove said. Notably, ancient Italians were locavores. Compared with people living on the coasts, for example, the Romans ate less fish.” ^^

Zooarchaeologists, scientists study the remains of animals found in archaeological sites. Joel N. Shurkin wrote in insidescience: “They rummaged through ancient garbage dumps or middens, and occasionally even ancient latrines looking for the bones of animals and fish people ate. People would sometimes dump the garbage in the latrine instead of walk to the neighborhood dump, MacKinnon said. They can deduce a great deal from the bones about what life was like. They also can often piece together a typical diet based on recovered porcelain shards. “They can look at bones in a dump and can tell what the animal was, sometimes how it was slaughtered, where it came from, and how the food supply worked. “For instance, if one site had nothing but feet bones, “It tells us that things were marketed and better cuts went elsewhere,” he said. [Source: Joel N. Shurkin, insidescience, February 3, 2015 +/]

Ancient Mosaics Reveal Changing Fish Size

Rossella Lorenzi wrote in discovery.com: “The dusky grouper, one of the major predators in the Mediterranean sea, used to be so large in antiquity that it was portrayed as a “sea monster,” a new study into ancient depictions of the endangered fish has revealed. “Amazingly, ancient mosaic art has provided important information to reconstruct this fish’s historical baseline,” Paolo Guidetti of the University of Salento in Italy, told Discovery News. [Source: Rossella Lorenzi, news.discovery.com, September 13, 2011 -]

“Considered one of the most flavorful species among the Mediterranean fish, the dusky grouper (Epinephelus marginatus) is a large, long-lived, slow-growing, protogynous hermaphrodite fish (with sex reversal from female to male). It can be found mainly in the Mediterranean, the African west coast and the coast of Brazil. Having faced harvesting for millennia — grouper bones have been found in human settlements dating back more than 100,000 years — this species has been decimated in recent decades by commercial and recreational fishing. It is now categorized as endangered.-

“To look farther back into the grouper’s history, the researchers examined hundreds of Etruscan, Greek, and Roman paintings and mosaics depicting fishing scenes and fish. At the end, they focused on 23 mosaics which represented groupers. In 10 of the 23 mosaics, dating from the 1st to 5th centuries, groupers were portrayed as being very large. Indeed, the ancient Romans might have considered groupers some sort of “sea monsters” able to eat a fisherman whole, as shown in a 2nd century mosaic from the Bardo National Museum in Tunis. -

“The mosaics also indicated that groupers lived in shallow waters much closer to shore, and were caught by fishermen using poles or harpoons from boats at the water’s surface. It’s a technique that would surely yield no grouper catch today,” said the researchers. Although there are no known instances of dusky groupers attacking human swimmers, the art depictions are very “informative,” said the researchers. These representations suggest that groupers were, in ancient times, so large as to be portrayed as sea monsters and that their habitat use and depth distribution have shifted in historical times,” Guidetti and Micheli wrote. -

“Ancient Roman authors such Ovid (43 B.C. – 18 A.D.) and Pliny the Elder ((23 A.D. – 79 A.D.) reported that groupers were fished by anglers in shallow waters, where they are now rare if not completely absent. According to their accounts, fish were so strong they could break fishing lines. Ancient art provides a link between prehistorical and modern evidence and suggests that shallow near shore Mediterranean ecosystems have lost large, top predators and their corresponding ecological roles,” the researchers concluded.” -

Pompeii Wine Brought Back to Life

In 2016, The Local reported: “Made from ancient grape varieties grown in Pompeii, ‘Villa dei Misteri’ has to be one of the world’s most exclusive wines. The grapes are planted in exactly the same position, grown using identical techniques and grow from the same soil the city’s wine-makers exploited until Vesuvius buried the city and its inhabitants in A.D. 79. [Source: the local.it, February 2016 ]

“In the late 1800s, archaeologist Giuseppe Fiorelli first excavated some of the city’s vineyards from beneath three metres of solid ash. The digs turned up an almost perfect snapshot of ancient wine-growing – and thirteen petrified corpses, huddled against a wall. Casts were made of the bodies, as well as the vines and the surviving segments of trellises on which they were growing. But archaeologists didn’t think to restore the vineyards of ancient Pompeii until the late 1980s.

“When they did, they realized they didn’t have a clue about wine-making, so they called in local winemaker Piero Mastrobeardino. Together they set out to discover how the ancient Romans made wine, and which grapes and farming methods they used. “The team looked at casts of vine roots made two centuries ago and consulted the surviving fragments of ancient farming texts,” Mastrobeardino told The Local. “We even looked at ancient frescoes to try to identify which grapes grew from Pompeii’s soil.” The team discovered that the type of grapes their ancestors were growing, called Piederosso Sciacinoso and Aglianico, were the same varieties still being grown on the slopes of Vesuvius by local farmers. Aglianico is a variety which Piero’s father is credited for saving from extinction after the Second World War.

“Although the grape varieties were still the same, farming techniques had changed significantly since the time of the Romans. “We use a number of methods to grow the fruit and carry out all of the work manually. One thing all our farming techniques have in common is that the grapes are grown at an extremely high density,” Mastrobeardino explained. At first, experts doubted whether the grapes would grow at all at yields almost twice as high as those used today. However, once placed back in Pompeii’s fertile soil, they flourished. Enologists discovered that the Romans’ high-density growth technique is actually beneficial – the technique, now rediscovered, is spreading to the modern wine-making.

Gladiators Diet Determined by Examining Their Bones

“Roman historians sometimes called gladiators hordearii, which means "barley eaters" in Latin. Ancient texts by Roman scholars Pliny, Galen and Tacitus describe a special "gladiator diet" of barley and bell beans. Is this backed up by archaeological evidence?

Tia Ghose wrote in Livescience: ““In 1993, archaeologists surveying the holy procession path between the Temple of Artemis (one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World) and the city of Ephesus, Turkey, uncovered a mass burial pit not far from an ancient gladiator stadium. The pit contained the battle-scarred bones of 68 people who had died between the second and third centuries. The cemetery also contained some gladiator gravestones depicting battles, and most of the skeletons belonged to men between the ages of 20 and 30, according to a 2006 article in the journal Forensic Science International. Gladiators — who were typically prisoners of war, condemned men or slaves — usually lost all right to a proper burial, but it's possible the owner of the local gladiator school had purchased or rented this plot for his students,” scholars have speculated. [Source: Tia Ghose, Livescience, October 27, 2014 ]

A team led by Fabian Kanz, a forensic anthropologist at the Medical University of Vienna in Austria, decided to take a closer look at the bones from Ephesus. “The team analyzed the skeletal fragments' ratio of carbon, sulfur and nitrogen isotopes (atoms of the same element with a different number of neutrons). (Because different plants and animals contain different ratios of these isotopes, their ratios in bones can reveal the long-term dietary patterns of ancient people.)

“The gladiator bones showed low levels of the isotope nitrogen-15, which is typical of a diet high in nitrogen-fixing plants, such as lentils and beans. Even so, the gladiators' diet probably wasn't all that different from the mostly vegetarian fare eaten by the Roman populace, Kanz said. Because the chemical signals of a diet can take years to appear in the bones, however, it's possible that the gladiators did eat a different diet — but simply didn't live long enough after entering the deadly profession for that chemical signature to show up in their bones, he said.

Roman Infant and Home Burials

Unlike Christians, Romans did not consider children as beings with a developed soul. As a consequence they often discarded dead infants or buried them in the garden like a dead pet. Laws were passed in the 5th century outlawing the sale of children to families who might give a child a better chance of survival.

mourning a child scene from a sarcophagus

An infant graveyard, dated to around 400 B.C., the largest ever discovered, was found near the town of Lugano, 70 miles north of Rome. The bodies of the infants were buried there in earthen jars, with, in some cases, decapitated puppies and raven claws. By this period in history Rome had been Christianized and archaeologists interpret these gruesome pagan offerings as a superstitious act brought on by "extreme stress."

The epitaphs composed for infant tombs also disclose a great deal about the intense grief parents felt towards lost infants. One inscription read that the baby's life consisted of just “nine breaths." In another a father wrote: “My baby Aceva was snatched away to live in Hades before she had her fill of the sweet light of life. She was beautiful and charming, a little darling as if from heaven, her father weeps for her and, because he is her father, asks that the earth may rest lightly on her forever."

In 2010, archaeologist at the University of British Columbia announced that had found a grave inside a room a house at Kaukana, an ancient Roman and Byzantine village on the south coast of Sicily. Normally burials from this period are found in the village cemetery on the outskirts, or else around the village church. Inside the burial were two skeletons – one of a woman aged about 25, and the other of a young child. The discovery was made by a team led by Professor Roger Wilson, Head of Classical, Near Eastern and Religious Studies at UBC. [Source: Loren Plottel, University of British Columbia, April 10, 2010 ]

Curse Tablets in Ancient Rome

The ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Persians, Jews, Christians, Gauls and Britons all dispensed curse tablets used to placate "unquiet" graves and call up the spirits of the underworld to make trouble. [Source: Christopher A. Faraone, Archaeology, March/April 2003]

In the Roman empire fortunetellers placed elaborate curses on lead tablets called defixiones . The practice was so common that scribes were hired to copy form-letter curses from "magical" papyri and many fortunetellers who dispensed curses made money from breaking them. Curse tablets endured until they were prohibited by the Christian Church.

Archaeologists have found hundreds of tablets with strange letters or the victim's name. The Greeks called them “curses that bind tight” and they appear to have invented them, with a great number focusing on sporting competitions or legal contests. The Latin term means “curses that fix or fasten someone." “To make such a “binding spell," Christopher A. Faraone wrote in Archaeology magazine, “one would inscribe the victim's name and a formula on a lead tablet, fold it up, often pierce it with a nail, and then deposit it in a grave or a well or a fountain, placing it in the realm of ghosts or underworld divinities who might be asked to enforce the spell."

curse objects

Curse tablets aimed at bringing misfortune to chariot racing teams have been found. One Roman-era curse tablet from Carthage read: "Bind the horses whose names and images on this implement I entrust you . . . Bind their running, their powers, their soul, their onrush, their speed. Take away their victory, entangle their feet, hinder them, hobble them, so that tomorrow morning in the hippodrome they are not able to run or walk about, or win, or go out of the starting gates, or advance either on the racecourse or track but they fall with their drivers." One aimed at a particular chariot team and driver that was buried with a rooster sacrifice went, “Just as this rooster has been bound by its feet, hands, and head, so bind the legs and hands and head and heart of Victoricus the charioteer of the Blue team, for tomorrow."

Curses were not always bad. Many were love spells. One from the A.D. fifth century read: "Grab Euphemia and lead her to me, Theon, loving me with frenzied love, and bind her with bonds that are unbreakable, strong and adamantine, so that she loves me, Theon, and do not allow her to eat, drink sleep or joke or laugh but make [her] rush out of every place and dwelling, abandon father, mother, brothers and sisters, until she comes to me, Theon, loving me, wanting me” with “unceasing and wild love. And if she holds someone else to her bosom, let her put him out, forget him, and hate him, but love, desire, and want me . . . Now, now. Quickly, quickly."

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons and “The Private Life of the Romans” by Harold Whetstone Johnston except garbage Archaeology News

Text Sources: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Rome sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Late Antiquity sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; “Outlines of Roman History” by William C. Morey, Ph.D., D.C.L. New York, American Book Company (1901) ; “The Private Life of the Romans” by Harold Whetstone Johnston, Revised by Mary Johnston, Scott, Foresman and Company (1903, 1932); BBC Ancient Rome bbc.co.uk/history/ ; Project Gutenberg gutenberg.org ; Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Live Science, Discover magazine, Archaeology magazine, Reuters, Associated Press, The Guardian, AFP, The New Yorker, Wikipedia, Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopedia.com and various other books, websites and publications.

Last updated October 2024