« Bowing, Scraping and Scribal Traditions
Main
Gigantic Tsunami 4,800 Years Ago? »
November 14, 2006
Latrines at Qumran
As far as I know, Tyler Williams of Codex is the world's leading authority on urinating and defecating in the ancient Near East. He has a whole series on the subject.
Of the several discussions of the recent discovery of latrines outside the community boundary at Qumran, Tyler's broad experience in this area makes his the best. He also has links to other reports and discussions.
Do these finds support the Essene hypothesis against the pottery factory hypothesis? Perhaps, but I'm not sure. Here's the part of the Nature story I found most interesting.
Dead eggs from intestinal parasites, including roundworm (Ascaris), whipworm (Trichuris), tapeworm (Taenia) and pinworm (Enterobius vermicularis), were preserved in the soil. "If you look at a latrine from the past you will always find these parasites," comments Piers Mitchell, a medical practitioner and archaeologist at Imperial College London, UK.It seems a pretty ordinary picture of ancient ill health, says Mike Turner, a parasitologist at the University of Glasgow, UK. He describes the pinworm rather aptly as "common as muck", adding that to use its presence to argue that the Essenes wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls is "an interesting bit of lateral thinking", he says.
Greatly improved public health is among the most impressive and underappreciated elements of life today in developed countries. Don't forget to wipe, flush and wash your hands.
Posted by Duane Smith at November 14, 2006 9:33 AM | Read more on Archaeology |
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.telecomtally.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1937
Comments
Gee... at least I'm the world's leading authority in something! :-)
Posted by: Tyler Williams at November 14, 2006 7:25 PM
Sorry, comments are closed for this post.
Send me an email if it is important.