‘Not very inviting’: Pompeii bath facilities may have been filthy with lead-contaminated water
THE ancient Romans are well known for their advanced water supply systems and hygienic facilities, including public baths and bathroom. But the first baths built at Pompeii may not have been particularly pleasant, due to dirty, contaminated water that was only replaced once a day, a new study suggests.
“It is very likely that the bathing experience in this small spa facility may have been unhygienic and therefore unwelcoming,” said the study’s lead author. Gül Sürmelihindigeoarchaeologist at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz in Germany, told Live Science in an email.
Sürmelihindi and colleagues analyzed the chemical compound calcium carbonate preserved in the encrustations of the Republican Baths of Pompeii to study the composition of the water supply. Their study was published Monday January 12 in the journal PNAS.
Public baths were a key part of Roman culture, the researchers write in the study. Roman Empire expanded, the bathing culture has also evolved. At the height of the Roman Empire, Romans “built long-distance aqueducts so they could bathe and cleanse themselves daily,” Sürmelihindi said.
But in the first baths built in Pompeii, which were used between 130 and 30 BC. Roman Republicthe situation was different. Before the city built an aqueduct, seaside facilities were filled with water from wells and cisterns via a single water-lifting machine operated by slaves.
“The water could not be changed more than once a day,” Sürmelihindi explained. “In this context, I would expect the water to be less clean, especially before the bathing water is refreshed again.”
To study the composition of bath water during this period, researchers studied samples of calcium carbonate, a mineral form of calcium. Calcium carbonate is produced when calcium ions in hard water react with carbonate ions, leading to the formation of scale, a hard, chalky deposit that builds up in kettles, boilers and pipes.
The researchers found that the carbonate from Bains Républicains showed a sharp decrease in carbon isotopes (variations of the element with different numbers of neutrons) between the well that provided the water and the heated pools where people bathed. The lowest carbon isotope values were found in areas where water flowed, meaning the primary cause was likely “the introduction of organic carbon from microbial activity and human waste (e.g., sweat, sebum, urine, bath oil),” the researchers wrote.
“These baths were an experience that we no longer have today,” co-author of the study Cees Passchiergeoarchaeologist at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, told Live Science in an email. “People do not use soapbut olive oil to scrub and scrape off the dirt, and some of that oil would land in the water.
The water in the heated swimming pools of the Bains Républicains showed “heavy contamination by human waste”, suggesting that it was not replenished regularly and that it provided “poor hygienic conditions for Pompeian bathers”, the researchers wrote.
The researchers also studied the contamination of the baths by heavy metals by analyzing the traces of elements left there. In the Republican Baths, the team identified high levels of lead, a toxic element likely introduced by the bath complex’s lead pipe system. But over time, the gradual encrustation of calcium carbonate on the pipes would have reduced the level of lead in the water.
It’s unclear whether the murky water would have kept people away.
“Everyone mixed in the baths, regardless of social class, and the price was low,” says Passchier. But if the water was truly disgusting and smelly, he said, the baths wouldn’t have had any customers. “People probably didn’t spend a lot of time in the hot pools, which were small, but mostly spent time sitting in the warm air of the hot tub chatting,” he said.
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