1,000-year-old Viking toilet uncovered in Denmark

[rangerrebew]

1,000-year-old Viking toilet uncovered in Denmark
June 18, 2017 - 09:33
A deep hole containing human faeces has been discovered at a Viking settlement in Denmark. Is this Denmark’s oldest toilet?
 

In a Viking settlement on Stevns in Denmark, archaeologists have excavated a two metre deep hole. But it is not just any old hole. This hole, it seems, may be the oldest toilet in Denmark.

Radiocarbon dating of the faeces layer dates back to the Viking Age, making it quite possibly the oldest toilet in Denmark.

http://sciencenordic.com/1000-year-old-viking-toilet-uncovered-denmark

[catfish1957]

1,000-year-old Viking toilet uncovered in Denmark
June 18, 2017 - 09:33
A deep hole containing human faeces has been discovered at a Viking settlement in Denmark. Is this Denmark’s oldest toilet?
 

Sounds like a job for the grad students........

[driftdiver]

Hopefully it wasnt after a night of Mexican  food and tequila.

[Gefn]

Maybe it belongs to Ragnar.

@CatherineofAragon
@To-Whose-Benefit?

It wasn't mine. But I'll ask Loki. 

[To-Whose-Benefit?]

OK. heh.

There has never yet been a Viking grave excavated in which the occupant had any tooth decay.

Laugh all you want, but what they uncover in this pile of . . . . . will add to the explanations archeologists already have as to why.

No dental care as we understand it.

So it's diet. And this find will identify what was in their guts.

[Smokin Joe]

OK. heh.

There has never yet been a Viking grave excavated in which the occupant had any tooth decay.

Laugh all you want, but what they uncover in this pile of . . . . . will add to the explanations archeologists already have as to why.

No dental care as we understand it.

So it's diet. And this find will identify what was in their guts.

I reckon lutefisk would kill off most anything that would decay teeth.
I think some of it is genetics, too. Most of the folks up this way who are of Scandanavian lineage have seriously good teeth, as long as they stay away from pop and meth.

[driftdiver]

I reckon lutefisk would kill off most anything that would decay teeth.
I think some of it is genetics, too. Most of the folks up this way who are of Scandanavian lineage have seriously good teeth, as long as they stay away from pop and meth.

Probably no sugar.  Europeans had good teeth until they discovered sugar

[andy58-in-nh]

Well, I'm impressed.

[To-Whose-Benefit?]

I reckon lutefisk would kill off most anything that would decay teeth.
I think some of it is genetics, too. Most of the folks up this way who are of Scandanavian lineage have seriously good teeth, as long as they stay away from pop and meth.

[Polly Ticks]

Uncovered, you say?

Apparently it was a man who used it last.

[To-Whose-Benefit?]

A couple paragraphs from my fiction I'm giving away.

Lutefisk Indeed!


He bethought himself that of all of the Devil's imps circling overhead this year, one particular pest among them who made certain of his neighbors ten times the trouble they usually were, was laughing at him, determined to show up early and in force.

The crops folks fed on wouldn't be ready for a month after the hay harvest, feed for the livestock. They'd be into the moldy rye left over from last year and its day or even month long bouts of demonic possession. The mold on rye in sufficient quantities was a powerful hallucinogen.

[lysergic acid/LSD]

And with the demonic rye came the stockfish. Cod was salted and air dried on racks, and piled high as a last rampart against starvation. Hard as a rock it lasted for years. Even after breaking it up with an axe it still needed more than boiling to soften it. The softener was lye, the very stuff that socks were scrubbed in.

It was widely lampooned as ljuga fisk (lie fish), as no one upon tasting it could believe it had ever been a fish in the first place. Some kidnapped the scaled horrors on their way to the pot in winter and assaulted the cook with them. Others starved themselves to death. It was easier than fighting over the outhouse.


And this post is from an earlier version of my author blog, which I never took down.

Lutefisk: Another Viking Remainder of Horror and Evil Visitants

http://vikingfinder.blogspot.com/2012/07/lutefisk-another-viking-remainder-of.html

[Smokin Joe]

@To-Whose-Benefit?  One thing about lutefisk (I have eaten it, and those who, for whatever demented reasons are aficionados claim it is the best in the CONUS, if not the world), is that when properly prepared there is no doubt that at some point in its ancestry it either was or was in very close quarters with very fragrant fish.

After consumption, the flavor and bouquet (somewhat akin to the bilge of a fishing boat in midsummer) linger for days, not so much on the breath which can ordinarily be purged by the consumption of spicy or highly aromatic foods such as strong onion or garlic eaten raw, well chewed, (or large quantities of pungent liquor), but when one belches, the effect of those antihalitotics is negated in a cloud strongly reminiscent of the fragrance of well aged fish.
The effects manage to last far longer than the ordinary peristaltic actions of the alimentary canal would allow, but such is the nature of the beast. At any rate, I found the texture and bouquet sufficient deterrent after those first few morsels that I can readily understand how a tribe would keep an unpilfered stock on hand until such times of extreme caloric distress.

[Gefn]

I highly recommend @To-Whose-Benefit? Book.

[Smokin Joe]

I highly recommend @To-Whose-Benefit? Book.

The lutefisk commentary at the site is a hoot, too! 

http://vikingfinder.blogspot.com/2012/07/lutefisk-another-viking-remainder-of.html

[To-Whose-Benefit?]

@To-Whose-Benefit?  One thing about lutefisk (I have eaten it, and those who, for whatever demented reasons are aficionados claim it is the best in the CONUS, if not the world), is that when properly prepared there is no doubt that at some point in its ancestry it either was or was in very close quarters with very fragrant fish.

After consumption, the flavor and bouquet (somewhat akin to the bilge of a fishing boat in midsummer) linger for days, not so much on the breath which can ordinarily be purged by the consumption of spicy or highly aromatic foods such as strong onion or garlic eaten raw, well chewed, (or large quantities of pungent liquor), but when one belches, the effect of those antihalitotics is negated in a cloud strongly reminiscent of the fragrance of well aged fish.
The effects manage to last far longer than the ordinary peristaltic actions of the alimentary canal would allow, but such is the nature of the beast. At any rate, I found the texture and bouquet sufficient deterrent after those first few morsels that I can readily understand how a tribe would keep an unpilfered stock on hand until such times of extreme caloric distress.

 


UFF DAH!