Dirty Jokes in Latrine Mosaics Entertained Ancient Romans
As men relieved themselves at the public toilets in the coastal city of Antiochia ad Cragum some 1,800 years ago, they probably would have been amused by dirty scenes crafted into floor mosaics, archaeologists have found.
The second-century mosaics, found inside a Roman latrine in Turkey, show scenes that clearly play on myth: Narcissus fascinated with his own phallus and Ganymede getting his genitals sponged clean by a bird.
"We were stunned at what we were looking at," said Michael Hoff, an archaeologist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. "You have to understand the myths to make it really come alive, but bathroom humor is kind of universal as it turns out."
The two mosaic scenes twist common tropes in Greek and Roman art. Narcissus is typically shown falling in love with his own reflection in water. In the mosaic at Antiochia ad Cragum, which was likely created in the second century, only half of the scene is preserved —but, Hoff told Live Science, "it's the good half." Read more.
