Startlingly—at least to newcomers—the market also served as a repository for the urine collected in clay pots in households across the city. Whether people were paid for what they brought or fined for what they didn’t bring is not clear. In either case, the practice served two purposes. The collection of the waste in one place rendered most of the city very clean. Ammonia was also needed for tanning hides and making salt crystals, and there was no better source than the urine from the island’s tens of thousands of people. Canoes full of basins of it were lined up near the market, and there the
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