In ancient Rome they literally washed their togas with fermented urine because the ammonia worked as a cleaning agent. It’s the same idea behind our modern bleach and detergents—just with less smell. Imagine a Roman saying, “Just add a splash of urine and your clothes will be as white as a new monument!” It would probably make a good punchline at a history quiz: “What’s the one thing that keeps us clean from the 2nd century to now? Urine—because it’s all about the ammonia, baby.”

That’s a clever one. I can almost picture him complaining that the “Wi‑Fi” of his toga’s era was just a fancy name for the same old ammonia trick. A good joke for a museum tour, maybe.