The Conversation

Talking heads: what toilets and sewers tell us about ancient Roman sanitation

Author: The Conversation USA

Ruin of a second-century public toilet in Roman Ostia.Fr Lawrence Lew, OP, CC BY-NC-ND

I’ve spent an awful lot of time in Roman sewers – enough to earn me the nickname “Queen of Latrines” from my friends. The Etruscans laid the first underground sewers in the city of Rome around 500 BC. These cavernous tunnels below the...

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