Aqueducts What is an Aqueduct Aqueducts were used

Aqueducts

What is an Aqueduct? § Aqueducts were used to carry fresh water to Rome. § They are like bridges that we walk over. § They would carry water through pipes directly to latrines(Roman toilets)and some private homes. § The waste water went into a bowl shaped object to keep the City hygienic. § Aqueducts also brought water to Roman baths. § They were called aqueducts (ACK-wa-ducts), from the Latin word for water (aqua) and the Latin word for channel (ductus).

Why Aqueducts were built. § Aqueducts were built for fresh water supply, baths and fountains. § As Rome's population grew water was needed. § It was also used for under floor heating in private homes or people who could afford it. § And believe it or not they also used water (supplied by the Aqueducts) to flood Amphitheatres to re-enact the sea battles.

Aqueduct facts. § The first roman Aqueduct ever was built in 313 B. C. § People think that Aqueduct Appia was the first. § It supplied a fountain at a local cattle mart. § An Aqueduct generally took 5 -10 years to build. § The longest Aqueduct was Aqua Marcia it was 444 miles long. § It was built by Marcius Rex. § Some Aqueducts are still in use today one of them being Aqua Felice.

Construction of the Aqueducts. § In a period of 500 years they created 11 Aqueducts-mostly built by slaves. § To keep the water flowing the Romans lay underground pipes and constructed siphons throughout the landscape. Workers dug winding channels underground and created networks of water pipes to carry water from the source lake or basin into Rome. The pipes were typically built in concrete, but were sometimes made of LEAD. § The Romans roughly built up to 500 -800 miles worth of aqueducts and without modern day tools. § Siphons are part of the mechanism that makes toilets flush. § The main tools they used were: Greek Pulleys and wooden cranes.

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Lead pipes § The Romans knew the dangers of lead contaminating their drinking water § The pipes were used for passage of water. § Today, if you have lead pipes the plumber might ask you to run your water before you drink it. That stops the water becoming contaminated. § But in Aqueducts that happened naturally in the Roman system.

Why the Romans built aqueducts § As Roman towns got bigger, in the course of the Roman Republic, it got too hard for the people who lived in the towns to get drinking and washing water. • In larger Roman towns, people often got sick or died from drinking water that had been contaminated with sewage. • When people drank water with sewage in it, they could get sick with dysentery or they died. • To fix this problem, many Roman towns built aqueducts. This was a big improvement on Greek sewage arrangements, where people just poured their waste into the street however they wanted.

Who built them? Ø It was mainly slaves that built the Aqueducts alongside some highlyskilled engineers. Ø The majority of the slaves were brought as hostages from previous wars but some of them were bought in groups at auctions. Ø The slaves were also responsible for damage done on the Aqueducts. Ø They were ill treated and weren`t paid. Ø The Romans used Greek-pulleys and wooden cranes to lift the huge limestone slabs. Ø They built 11 Aqueducts that supplied the ancient city of Rome it`s hard to imagine they did this without modern-day machinery.

The impact the aqueducts had on people. § They wouldn’t have their bath culture. § It kept the City of Ancient Rome clean. § Visitors to Rome were amazed by how clean the City was. § The Aqueducts in general became tourist attractions. § The Aqueducts were within the City that meant they were open to everybody

Segovia Aqueduct § One of the best-preserved Aqueducts. § It was probably built in 50 A. D. § 28 metres tall and 15 kilometres from its water source in the Segovia mountains. § The source is from a lake at an altitude of 1, 255 metres.

All in a nutshell the Romans were very smart people § who came up with an ingenious idea of transporting § water from one place to another and that was Aqueducts.

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