Digesting the Past 揭晓古罗马人饮食秘诀

By Duncan Kennedy, BBC News, Italy

Researchers have been finding out how Romans lived 2000 years ago

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Background: 考古学家在对古罗马下水道的一番研究后，发现了两千年前古罗马人的生活规律，同时也对他们的饮食习惯和常发病症有了更进一步的了解。

This unconventional journey into the past took the team down into an ancient sewer below the town of Herculaneum. Along with neighbouring Pompeii, it was one of the settlements buried by the Vesuvius volcanic explosion of 79AD.

In a tunnel 86 metres long, they unearthed what's believed to be the largest deposit of human excrement ever found in the Roman world. 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 in to 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 and even a gold ring with a decorative gemstone. But it's the human remains that have most astonished the archaeologists, all going to prove that where there's muck, there's memory.