A teratoma, for those of you who have not delved into the fascinating world of medical oddities, is a tumor, usually benign, in which abnormal germ cells cause random bits of body to grow inside organs that bear no relation to said bits. Teratomas have been found to contain hair, teeth, bone, skin, muscle, bronchi, fatty cells, thyroid tissue, and more. These are not parasitic twins or fetus in fetu situations. Early in embryonic development, germ cells are triggered by our genes to form sperm in males and eggs in females, but they are also pluripotent meaning they have the potential to develop through cellular differentiation into any cell type. Sometimes they get triggered abnormally, and a creepy little ball of teeth and hair winds up setting up shop in your ovaries, among other places.

It’s a fairly rare phenomenon and in 60% of cases patients are entirely asymptomatic so teratomas aren’t often encountered even among the living. They are virtually unheard of in the archaeological record because they have to calcify to survive the march of time, and once calcified they can be easily confused for simple stones by archaeologists who have no idea there’s lung tissue and teeth and hair inside that rock. It takes a special teratoma to calcify and be positioned in such a way that it is clearly identifiable as a mass of organic origin.

This special teratoma was found in the pelvic region of a woman who died and was buried in early 5th century Spain. Her skeletal remains were discovered in 2010 in a necropolis at the archeological site of La Fogonussa near the town of Lleida in Catalonia, Spain. She was 30 to 40 years old when she died and was buried under roof tiles (tegulae) that had been leaned against each other to form a gabled roof over her body, a common form of burial at the time. There were no grave goods found interred with her; she was likely of modest means.

Physically she wasn’t in great shape. She had degenerative lesions from arthritis in her shoulder, wrist, hip, and knee and arthritic bone spurs in her spine. Then there was the round ball in her pelvis. Its position and shape strongly suggested that it was calcified organic material so it was sent to the lab for further analysis. There were all kinds of possible candidates: it could have been a large gallstone, a calcified lymph nodes, an ovarian calcification, even a coproliths (calcified feces). Researchers examined it visually and with CT scans to figure out what it was.

They found that it’s a partial sphere 42.72 millimeters (1.68 inches) in length and 44.27 millimeters (1.74 inches) in diameter at its widest point. It’s not a solid mass anymore. Most of the tissue has decayed leaving a shell 3.2 millimeters (.13 inches) thick at the thickest. That shell was once the capsule or outer layer of the tumor. There was some loose sediment inside the shell in which researchers found a thin piece of bone and two deformed teeth. An irregular bone formation attached to the inner wall also proved to contain teratoma treasure: two more deformed teeth.

The teeth and bone prove that it’s no gallstone, but rather the only archaeological ovarian teratoma ever discovered. Only one other ancient teratoma has been reported in the paleopathological literature, an 1800-year-old mediastinic (above the pericardium but below the collarbone) teratoma published in 2009 by none other than Philippe Charlier, who between the teratoma, the 16th century royal mistress overdosing on gold, the head of Henry IV, the blood of Louis XVI and the ancient pooper scoopers, has had one mighty cool career.

Researchers were not able to determine teratoma lady’s cause of death. Encapsulated ovarian teratomas are benign and not fatal in and of themselves, but they can cause complications that result in death.

“This ovarian teratoma could have been the cause of this woman’s death, because sometimes the development of teratomas results in displacement and functional disturbances of adjacent organs,” the researchers write. They note that infection, hemolytic anemia and pregnancy complications can also occur with an ovarian teratoma, events that could also have caused the woman’s death.

Or not. She could just as easily have died from a heart attack or a hundred other illnesses that can’t be identified from skeletal remains. Since the teratoma is small and was safely ensconced in her ovary, it wouldn’t have shown outwardly. She probably didn’t know she had a mass inside her, never mind a mass of teeth and bones.

In China paper was used for intimate cleaning as early as the second century B.C., but there was no toilet paper in classical Europe. In my many, many visits to ancient Roman toilets over the years, I had always heard that Romans used a sponge on a stick to wipe after defecating. In public latrines, the sponge-stick, or tersorium, would then be rinsed in running water and left in a bucket of vinegar for the next poor bastard to use.

The existence and use of the tersorium is confirmed in ancient writings. Seneca describes the implement in a deeply disturbing anecdote in the 70th of his Letters to Lucilius used to illustrate how people prefer even the worst death if they can choose it themselves over an easier death chosen for them by a master.

Nay, men of the meanest lot in life have by a mighty impulse escaped to safety, and when they were not allowed to die at their own convenience, or to suit themselves in their choice of the instruments of death, they have snatched up whatever was lying ready to hand, and by sheer strength have turned objects which were by nature harmless into weapons of their own. For example, there was lately in a training-school for wild-beast gladiators a German, who was making ready for the morning exhibition; he withdrew in order to relieve himself, – the only thing which he was allowed to do in secret and without the presence of a guard. While so engaged, he seized the stick of wood, tipped with a sponge, which was devoted to the vilest uses, and stuffed it, just as it was, down his throat; thus he blocked up his windpipe, and choked the breath from his body. That was truly to insult death!

As uncomfortable as a communal vinegar-soaked sponge-stick may seem to our delicate modern hygienic sensibilities, at least sponges are soft and vinegar does disinfect. Compared to using a rounded fragment of pottery to wipe yourself with, a tersorium sounds like paradise. Yet, a study co-authored by forensic anthropologist Philippe Charlier (who also co-authored the comparison of Louis XVI’s blood with Henry IV’s head)
published in the British Medical Journal has confirmed that pessoi, ceramic discs thought to be game pieces in ancient chess-like strategy games, were put to a more utilitarian use: scraping away fecal matter after defecation.

Researchers examined two terracotta pessoi, probably fragments from broken amphorae, found in the filling underneath Roman latrines close to excrement deposits. The fragments were recut to have smoother edges, thank God for small favors, and date to the 2nd century A.D. The smaller piece (on the left in the picture) was found on the island of Ustica, just north of Palermo, Sicily, and is 4.7 centimers (1.85 inches) in diameter, 1.7 centimeters (.67 inches) thick. The larger one was found on Gortyn, on the southern coast of Crete, and is 6 centimeters (2.36 inches) in diameter, 1.3 centimeters (0.51 inches) thick. That doesn’t leave much room for clean holding, but I suppose they have to be small enough to be wielded in, uh, tight quarters.

One side of the pessoi were cleaned as part of standard archaeological practice. The other side and the edges were not. Examination of the non-cleaned areas under a microscope found solidified and partially mineralised feces.

Although this is news to me, many pessoi have been found nestled the excrement deposits under ancient latrines all over the Mediterranean. There is also artistic evidence of the use of pottery fragments for wiping. The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston has a kylix, a wine cup, no less, that has this extraordinary image on the tondo, the flat round inside the cup:

I’m not the only one to whom this story comes as a surprise. Even experts like archaeologists and museum curators are just finding this out now. Dr. Rob Symmons, the curator of the Fishbourne Roman Palace, the largest Roman home in Britain, was highly amused to find all those discs they’ve been exhibiting as game pieces may turn out to have had a less cerebral and more scatological purpose

“The pieces had always been catalogued as broken gaming pieces but I was never particularly happy with that explanation. But when the article produced the theory they were used to wipe people’s bums I thought it was hilarious and it just appealed to me. I love the idea we’ve had these in the museum for 50 years being largely ignored and now they are suddenly engaging items you can relate to.”

Symmons, who has been at the museum for seven years, added: “We will obviously have to think about reclassifying these objects on our catalogue. But we hope the pieces will make people smile when they learn what they were used for.”

He concludes with classic British understatement: “They would have probably been quite scratchy to use and I doubt they would be as comfortable as using toilet roll.”

EDIT: Commenter rwmg rightly notes that the Christmas issue of the BMJ is famous for its spoof and light-hearted articles. This article is most certainly one of the latter, but I can’t say for sure either way if the study itself (ie, the microscopic examination of pessoi) is fictional or if it actually happened but is entertaining enough to include in the Christmas issue. The documentary and archaeological evidence it cites — ancient literary sources, the BMFA kylix, a 2002 article in the journal Hesperia on the pessoi unearthed in the Athenian agora — is factual. You can read the 2002 paper, A contextual approach to pessoi (gaming pieces, counters or convenient wipes?) by John K. Papadopoulos, on pages 423 – 427 of this pdf, and you should because the quotes from Aristophanes alone are worth the price of admission.

Italian archaeologists excavating the mortuary temple of 18th Dynasty (1550-1291 B.C.) pharaoh Amenhotep II in Luxor have discovered a number of rock tombs from the Third Intermediate Period (1075 – 664 B.C.). Each tomb has been cut into the rock with a deep shaft leading down into a burial chamber. The burial chambers contain the remains of wooden sarcophagi painted in black and red with funerary and religious scenes, skeletal remains, canopic jars and furniture for use in the afterlife.

The canopic jars are of excellent quality. There are 12 in total, some in limestone, the others in burnt clay. These vessels were used to hold the liver, lungs, stomach and intestines of the dead. The lids of the jars are carved in the shape of the four sons of Horus who are charged with protecting the organs. The baboon-headed deity is Hapi, guardian of the lungs. The human headed deity is Imsety; he protects the liver. Qebehsenuef has a falcon’s head and guards the intestines. Duamutef’s jackal head protects the stomach.

The canopy [sic] vases are thought to have come from the tomb of a woman. They date back to the period between 1075 and 664 B.C. and, [lead archaeologist Dr. Angelo] Sesana notes, were laid out in the manner of two on one side and two on the other of the burial, inside of which a sarcophagus and skeleton were found. The archaeologist said that they were unidentified. “But another time, and it was such a strong emotion that I began jumping up and down, I found canopy vases with the inscription of the name of the dead. It was the same name as that of a sarcophagus I had identified six years before.”

The contents of the tomb have been moved to a Luxor storehouse for restoration and examination. When the conservation and research is done, they’ll be put on display in a museum.

Other finds made this season include a monumental ramp and the tomb of a child of around six months of age. The body was missing, but inside the terracotta sarcophagus were artifacts — a beautiful set of bowls, plates and assorted tableware — neatly laid around a space where a mummy once was. The sarcophagus lid was broken, probably by looters in antiquity. The child’s tomb dates to the Middle Kingdom, around 1800 B.C., and archaeologists believe there may be a connection between it and the tombs of two young women from the same period discovered in last year’s dig.

The quality of the artifacts suggests the tombs hold the remains of élite members of Third Intermediate society. The fact that rich and important people were being buried in Amenhotep II’s temple at least four centuries after his death (he reigned from approximately 1427 to 1401 B.C.) underscores the religious importance of the temple even after its builder’s dynasty was long gone.

The Italian archaeological team from the Center of Egyptology Francesco Ballerini (CEFB) has been excavating the temple of Amenhotep II for fifteen years. For more about the temple and the group’s excavations, see their website. It has an interesting excavation diary but that’s only available in Italian. It’s worth firing up an online translator to read it, though.