Some graffiti found in Pompeii’s ruins: 

Nice to see nothing has changed.

There is a website with all of the graffiti

I love this.

I am laughing so hard

someone basically wrote “secundus is gay” on the wall humankind has not changed at all

People never change.

A loaf of bread made in the first century AD, which was discovered at Pompeii, preserved for centuries in the volcanic ashes of Mount Vesuvius. The markings visible on the top are made from a Roman bread stamp, which bakeries were required to use in order to mark the source of the loaves, and to prevent fraud. (via Ridiculously Interesting)

(sigh) I’ve seen these before, but this one’s particularly beautiful.

I feel like I’m supposed to be marveling over the fact that this is a loaf of bread that’s been preserved for thousands of years, and don’t get me wrong, that’s hella cool.  But honestly, I’m mostly struck by the unexpected news that “bread fraud" was apparently once a serious concern.

Because when you don't have mass production of food, the people responsible for feeding communities go under some serious scrutiny. You had to prove that your bread came from a particular baker, and that his output matched the amount of flour they'd been allotted. Because if it didn't it meant that someone, somewhere along the chain, was skimming off the top - a farmer holding back grain, a miller keeping too much flour for himself, or a baker cutting into his supplies and potentially putting additives (like sawdust) in the bread he sold.

It's a little like proving that your income and expenditures match.

Warning - this article contains an image which may cause distress

As you may have noticed the big exhibition on at the moment at the British Museum is the one on Pompeii. Having recently visited it I’d say it was good, if not a little crowded (particularly when the...

This is fascinating. I wish I knew more about volcanic eruptions so I could understand this more deeply!

Great read. 10/10 would spasm over.

Ancient Pompeians Could Go Upstairs to Pee

The residents of the ancient city of Pompeii weren’t limited to street-level plumbing, a new study finds. In fact, many in the city may have headed upstairs when nature called.

Most second floors in the Roman city are gone, claimed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius that destroyed Pompeii in A.D. 79. But vertical pipes leading to lost second stories strongly suggest that there were once toilets up there, according to a new analysis by A. Kate Trusler, a doctoral candidate in anthropology at the University of Missouri.

“We have 23 toilets that are connected, that are second-story preserved, that are connected to these downpipes,” Read more.

This is a big deal, like you don't even know.

Some graffiti found in Pompeii’s ruins: 

Nice to see nothing has changed.

There is a website with all of the graffiti

absolutely nothing has changed

Retweeting again for the joy of Pompeiian graffiti. God, what their texts and tweets would have been like…

tell me one more time how history is dull I dare you

“Satura was here on September 3rd”

nice to know that society hasn’t changed a bit

there are like at least 3 that are like “lol i pooped here” and several more that are like “hey whoever is pooping here better cut it out”

Oh HELLLLL yes.

Garden of the Fugitives, Pompeii.

These are were people.

Basically when the volcano erupted, hot ash covered the city ten feet thick. And that mean it buried all the people there alive. And thus left these nifty human-statue imprints where their bodies rotted away beneath the pumice ash!

I want one for my garden.

PEN15 CLUB

I think if Freud was around with the Romans he would have a god damn field day. Freud had this theory about the stages of psychosexual development and one of the stages was to do with the junk and being fixated on it. It was weird and he made it weirder by tying in the Oedipus/Electra complexes but you know what, Freud was fucked let’s leave it at that. My point was: Penises. Romans dug them. 

Take this excerpt from Pompeii Awakened by Judith Harris

THEY CONFUSED A BAKERY FOR A BROTHEL.

HEY BABY, I CAN MAKE YOUR BREAD RISE.

SOMETHING, SOMETHING YEAST.

I took it too far. I’m sorry.

But it’s one of those really funny ‘Boy, is this embarrassing’ stories of archaeologists viewing the past with modern eyes and in doing so getting it wrong. NICE GOING, CHUMPS.

I’m kidding archaeologists. I love you. Never change.

OH MY GOD THIS IS FUCKING HILARIOUS.