You can learn a lot about a civilization by studying how they went to the bathroom, and how they got rid of human waste. A civilization's plumbing can teach us about the diets they ate, the diseases they contracted, how they conducted civil engineering projects, and possibly even what their attitudes about bathrooms were.

But our information about ancient bathrooms and toilets is still fairly new, especially when it comes to ancient Rome. Until recently, the bathroom habits of the ancients weren't considered an appropriate subject for academic study. When previous archaeologists did unearth ancient toilets, they came up with fantastical alternate reasons for their uses to avoid describing how they were actually used. When Italian excavator Giacomo Boni discovered a Roman toilet in 1913, he imagined that it was a water pump that powered the entire house.

In recent years, archaeologists have been giving ancient toilets a second look. And it's thanks to them that we can bring you these facts about going to the bathroom in ancient Rome.