{"id":44565,"date":"2025-11-11T16:01:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T16:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/?p=44565"},"modified":"2025-11-09T18:41:30","modified_gmt":"2025-11-09T18:41:30","slug":"ihbc-features-heritage-from-the-global-doorstep-the-genius-engineering-of-roman-aqueducts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/?p=44565","title":{"rendered":"IHBC features \u2018Heritage from the Global doorstep\u2019: The Genius Engineering of Roman Aqueducts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

image for illustration: ‘Chorobates – An ancient roman device for measuring slopes’ <\/a>by Yoni Toker, CC BY-SA 4.0<\/a> , via Wikimedia Commons<\/sub><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

An ambitious project of restoration necessitated an equally ambitious shoring up of infrastructure, reports Open Culture<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Open Culture writes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We tend to think of the Roman Empire as having fallen around 476 AD, but had things gone a little differently, it could have come to its end much earlier \u2014 before it technically began, in fact. In the year 44 BC, for instance, the assassination of Julius Caesar and the civil wars raging across its territories made it seem as if the foundering Roman Republic was about to go down and take Roman civilization with it. It fell to one man to ensure that civilization\u2019s continuity: \u2018His name was Octavian, and he was Caesar\u2019s adopted son,\u2019 says science reporter Carolyn Beans in the new Coded Chambers video above. \u2018At first, no one expected much from him,\u2019 but when he took control, he set about rebuilding the empire \u2018city by city\u2019 before it had officially been declared one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This ambitious project of restoration necessitated an equally ambitious shoring up of infrastructure, no single example of which more clearly represents Roman engineering prowess than the empire\u2019s aqueducts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Using as an example the system that fed the city of Nemausus, or modern-day N\u00eemes, Beans explains all that went into their construction over great lengths of challenging terrain \u2014 no stage of which, of course, benefited from modern construction techniques \u2014 with the help of University of Texas at Austin classical archaeology professor Rabun Taylor. The most basic task for Rome\u2019s engineers was to determine the proper slope of the aqueduct\u2019s channels: too steep, and the flowing water could cause damage; too flat, and it could stop before reaching its destination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Surveying the prospective aqueduct\u2019s route involved such ancient tools as the dioptra (used to establish direction and distance over long stretches of land), the groma (for straight lines and right angles between checkpoints), and the chorobates (to check if a surface was level). Then construction could begin on a network of underground tunnels called cuniculi. Where digging them proved unfeasible, up went arcades, some of which \u2014 like the Pont du Gard in southern France, seen in the video \u2014 still stand today. They do so thanks in large part to their limestone bricks having been arranged into arches, whose geometry directs tension in a way that allows the stone to support itself, with no masonry required. When water began running through an aqueduct and into the city, it would then be distributed to the gardens, fountains, thermae, and elsewhere \u2014 through conduit pipes that happened to be made of lead, but then, even the most brilliant Roman engineers couldn\u2019t foresee every problem.

Read more….<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

image for illustration: ‘Chorobates – An ancient roman device for measuring slopes’ by Yoni Toker, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons An ambitious project of restoration necessitated an equally ambitious shoring up of infrastructure, reports Open Culture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[23,49,576,199,577,22,575],"class_list":["post-44565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ihbc-newsblog","tag-expertise","tag-history","tag-measurements","tag-restoration","tag-roman","tag-skills","tag-tools"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44565"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44565\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44567,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44565\/revisions\/44567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}