From sarant@pt.lu Fri Mar 1 12:21:04 2002 Received: from mailscan2.cac.washington.edu (mailscan2.cac.washington.edu [140.142.33.16]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.12.1+UW01.12/8.12.1+UW02.01) with SMTP id g21KKwnJ076848 for ; Fri, 1 Mar 2002 12:20:59 -0800 Received: FROM mxu4.u.washington.edu BY mailscan2.cac.washington.edu ; Fri Mar 01 12:20:58 2002 -0800 Received: from zethes.pt.lu (zethes.pt.lu [194.154.192.53]) by mxu4.u.washington.edu (8.12.1+UW01.12/8.12.1+UW02.01) with ESMTP id g21KKuIe003133 for ; Fri, 1 Mar 2002 12:20:57 -0800 Received: from oemcomputer (ppp07-90070708-153.pt.lu [195.46.251.153]) by zethes.pt.lu (8.10.2/8.11.6) with SMTP id g21KKrt25063; Fri, 1 Mar 2002 21:20:53 +0100 (MET) Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.20020301212030.008a8760@mailsvr.pt.lu> X-Sender: sarant@mailsvr.pt.lu X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Fri, 01 Mar 2002 21:20:30 +0100 To: classics@u.washington.edu, From: Nikos Sarantakos Subject: RE: ancient feminine hygiene In-Reply-To: <002001c1c114$503ebc80$6601a8c0@Ginnyhome> References: <3.0.1.32.20020301090459.008e8b10@mailsvr.pt.lu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 05:29 01-03-02 -0600, Ginny Lindzey wrote: >> As to the use of sponges as tampons, my guess (totally >> uneducated) is that they were not so easily or cheaply >> available back then. > >Well.... how do we know about whether they were easily or cheaply >available? I'll buy that they weren't used as tampons, but if sponges >weren't cheap, wouldn't there be a rash of thefts from the public >latrines for those sponges on sticks? > >I would half think that it was one of those things that was so common >that it's not worth mentioning. I don't think we mention toilet paper >much in literature, even though it's everywhere. > >(ok, ok, what I need to locate now is some book on the long history of >sponge diving in the Mediterranean or something) > >ginnyL, who won't bring it up again > I said it was a totally uneducated guess; perhaps sponge was dirt cheap, but in more modern times sponge diving was a highly lucrative affair. I don't know whether sponge was ubiquitous, hence unworthy of mention, like toilet paper today. However, I do know that modern Greek literature, although taciturn on toilet paper, contains an impressive \ body of stories about sponge. ns .