Image Gallery: Pompeii's Toilets

Pompeii Toilet

A Pompeii latrine with a reconstructed wooden seat. Comfy?

Sloped Toilet

A toilet in Pompeii — (Image credit: A. Kate Trusler)

Downsloping walls in this latrine directed waste toward the drain.

Crumbled Latrine

Little is left of this latrine in the city of Pompeii.

Terracotta Downpipe

Vertical downpipe in Pompeii — (Image credit: A. Kate Trusler)

Vertical pipes in Pompeii's walls may once have lead to upstairs toilets.

Pompeii Downpipe

Downpipe in pompeii — (Image credit: A. Kate Trusler)

A pipe embedded in the lower story of a Pompeii building. Most of the second stories in the town were destroyed in the volcanic eruption that wiped the city off the map.

Second-Story Toilet

A few second-story toilets survive, such as this one.

Upstairs Latrine

The remains of this upstairs latrine include the barest hint of a curved ceiling or archway.

Pompeii Flush Toilet

A pipe leading in from the side likely provided flush water for this upstairs toilet in Pompeii.

Stephanie Pappas is a contributing writer for Live Science, covering topics ranging from geoscience to archaeology to the human brain and behavior. She was previously a senior writer for Live Science but is now a freelancer based in Denver, Colorado, and regularly contributes to Scientific American and The Monitor, the monthly magazine of the American Psychological Association. Stephanie received a bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of South Carolina and a graduate certificate in science communication from the University of California, Santa Cruz.