Remains of food scraps have been found in the drains of the ancient city of Pompeii, Italy which revealed a varied diet which includes giraffe legs as a choice of food of the ancient Roman elites.
New research suggests that the middle- and lower-class residents dined on healthy yet cheap foods, while the more wealthy residents dined on various delicacies. These findings contradict the common belief that the elite residents dined on exotic delicacies while the poor starved on birdseed.
Steven Ellis, study co-author and a classics professor at the University of Cincinnati, told LiveScience.com, "The traditional vision of some mass of hapless lemmings - scrounging for whatever they can pinch from the side of a street, or huddled around a bowl of gruel - needs to be replaced by a higher fare and standard of living, at least for the urbanites in Pompeii."
Pompeii was once a bustling Roman city which was tragically wiped out by a volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79. Ellis, along with his colleagues excavated about 20 shop fronts near the Portia Stabia. Charred food waste from the kitchens as well as human waste was found behind latrines and cesspits behind the food sellers. The wastes found were dated as far back as the early stage of development of Pompeii during the fourth century B.C.
The commoners of Pompeii were revealed to have eaten a simple but varied Mediterranean diet. This includes lentils, olives, nuts and fish as well as salted meat. Upscale restaurants were distinguished through the findings of more exotic delicacies being served. Traces of exotic and imported spices from far regions such as Indonesia were also discovered in this site.
Ellis added, "The material from the drains revealed a range and quantity of materials to suggest a rather clear socioeconomic distinction between the activities and consumption habits of each property, which were otherwise indistinguishable hospitality businesses."
Traces of imported foods such as sea urchin, shellfish and giraffe's leg were found in the drains at a more central property. The researchers believe that what they found is the first giraffe bone found in the ancient Roman city.
"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 none elite die," Ellis told LiveScience.com.
