What Did Ordinary People in Pompeii Eat? – Researchers Reveal Their Diet

MessageToEagle.com – According to University of Cincinnati archaeologists conducting excavations in the famed Roman city of Pompeii, its ordinary inhabitants consumed grains, fruits, nuts, olives, lentils, local fish and chicken eggs, as well as minimal cuts of more expensive meat and salted fish from Spain.
Their diet also contained delicacies such as flamingos, the poor scrounging for soup or gruel and a variety of exotic and imported spices, some from as far away as Indonesia.

Archaeologists have spent more than a decade digging in the ruins of Pompeii, buried under 30 meters of lapilli stones and ash after a big eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD, which also totally destroyed another Roman city –Herculaneum.

The area covers 10 separate building plots and a total of 20 shop fronts, most of which served food and drink. The waste that was examined included collections from drains as well as 10 latrines and cesspits, which yielded mineralized and charred food waste coming from kitchens and excrement.

“The excavation is producing a complete archaeological analysis of homes, shops and businesses at a forgotten area inside one of the busiest gates of Pompeii, the Porta Stabia,” Steven Ellis, a University of Cincinnati associate professor of classics said.

Among the discoveries in the drains was an abundance of the remains of fully-processed foods, especially grains,” Ellis adds.

“The material from the drains revealed a range and quantity of materials to suggest a rather clear socio-economic distinction between the activities and consumption habits of each property, which were otherwise indistinguishable hospitality businesses,” says Ellis.

Findings revealed foods that would have been inexpensive and widely available, such as grains, fruits, nuts, olives, lentils, local fish and chicken eggs, as well as minimal cuts of more expensive meat and salted fish from Spain. Waste from neighboring drains would also turn up less of a variety of foods, revealing a socioeconomic distinction between neighbors.

“That the bone represents the height of exotic food is underscored by the fact that this is thought to be the only giraffe bone ever recorded from an archaeological excavation in Roman Italy,” says Ellis.

“How part of the animal, butchered, came to be a kitchen scrap in a seemingly standard Pompeian restaurant not only speaks to long-distance trade in exotic and wild animals, but also something of the richness, variety and range of a non-elite diet.”

Ellis adds that one of the deposits dates as far back as the 4th century, which he says is a particularly valuable discovery, since few other ritual deposits survived from that early stage in the development of Pompeii.

“The ultimate aim of our research is to reveal the structural and social relationships over time between working-class Pompeian households, as well as to determine the role that sub-elites played in the shaping of the city, and to register their response to city-and Mediterranean-wide historical, political and economic developments,” Ellis explains.

“However, one of the larger datasets and themes of our research has been diet and the infrastructure of food consumption and food ways.”

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