Archaeol-ogists claim to have solved the century-old riddle why the tombs of Pompeii have so much litter — the citizens of the ancient Roman city may just have been messy at least by modern standards. The tombs of Pompeii, which was buried by a volcanic eruption in 79 AD, have been found with piles of animal bones, charcoal, broken pottery. Archaeologists in the past have explained the presence of so much garbage by theorising that 15 years before the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, an earthquake left the city in disrepair.
However, the latest study claimed that the citizens of Pompeii may have just been messy at least by modern standards. “We tend to assume things like that are universal, but attitudes toward sanitation are very culturally defined, and it looks like in Pompeii attitudes were very different than ours,” study researcher Allison Emmerson of University of Cincinnati was quoted as saying by LiveScience.
Archaeological evidence from the last 15 years indicates that the city likely did not fall into ruin after the quake in 62 AD; rather than flee, citizens appear to have rebuilt, reconstructing public spaces and elite houses. When the eruption buried the city, new tombs were still being built and the city appeared prosperous, Emmerson said. “It just didn’t make sense that trash would mean the tombs weren’t being used,” she said. In fact, the tombs weren’t unique; excavators have found the same sort of household garbage in the city streets, along the walls of the city, even on the floors of homes.
When the researchers excavated a room that seems to have also served as a restaurant, they found a cistern for storing water between two garbage pits packed with broken pottery and food waste, like animal bones, grape seeds and olive pits.