Aqueducts in the Hellenic area during the Roman period

2007 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 139-145
Author(s):  
E. Mavromati ◽  
L. Chryssaidis

Since their very beginnings, organized societies have been concerned with the preservation and improvement of their environment and natural resources as these were the basis of their wellbeing and survival. In pursuing this goal, many civilizations have constructed admirable technical and infrastructural works. To most of us, however, the society that stands out for its particular preoccupation and special widespread achievements in this field is the Roman Empire which actively demonstrated great interest for its cities and the providing for their everyday basic livelihood needs. The creation of most urban centres was combined with the construction of aqueducts, water supply and wastewater systems. During the Roman occupation period (200 BC–300 AD) of the Hellenic world, many cities within the region expanded and new urban centres were created. Substantial steps were taken to upgrade the urban landscape and to improve their living conditions. This was connected with water supply and wastewater systems, comprising aqueducts, water towers and underground pipe systems. The investigation of the criteria that determined engineers' design choices for aqueducts, methods and processes of construction, techniques and materials used - as these are revealed through the archaeological excavations and relics - testify to the environmental approach and the maintenance perception of the Roman period.

Author(s):  
Pascale Chevalier

For nearly 270 years, between the end of the Roman Empire and the advent of the Carolingian dynasty, the Merovingian territories experienced an intense flowering of religious construction, which recent archaeology has documented with increasing detail. This chapter sheds light on new research and recent discoveries; however, rather than reviewing all of the sites and studies of Merovingian churches and the contemporary sources mentioning them, it gives some new clues and reflections about so-called Merovingian architecture and the broad vision of an architectural form that was expressed in quite simple but majestic designs. These structures, constructed of stone (or wood), reveal a society progressively Christianized under the leadership of bishops, clerics, and monks, as well as by the Merovingian sovereigns. Without any break with classical antiquity, the Merovingian centuries fit into a continuous legacy that transformed the monumental landscape in both cities and countryside. The various forms of Christian monuments of the fifth to eighth century thus illustrate this heritage, sometimes through an extreme simplification of antique patterns and sometimes through the enrichment of aesthetic forms brought by the arrival of immigrant populations. Within a changing world, religious buildings appear to have been a catalyst for cultural exchanges as places of visibility and gathering, as witnesses of the building fever of the period. Our understanding of religious architecture in Merovingian Gaul is gradually becoming more accurate. We now know an increasing amount about the establishment, planning, forms and sizes, construction techniques, ornamentation, and liturgical and functional content of all these structures. These structures, which were so varied in size and use, reveal extensive artistic plurality.


Author(s):  
Svetlana E. Malykh

The article analyzes the ceramic imports found on the territory of the Meroitic Kingdom – the southern neighbour of Egypt, which existed on the territory of modern Sudan since the second half of the 6th century B.C. until the middle of the 4th century A.D. The imported pottery revealed in the process of archaeological excavations of necropoleis, residential and temple complexes are mainly of Mediterranean origin and are associated with the Hellenistic world that later became a part of the Roman Empire. The finds are mostly rare and are represented by fragments of amphorae from various regions of Italy, Aegean region, Asia Minor, the Levant, northern Africa, as well as the European provinces of the Roman Empire – Baetika and Gaul. The main consumer of foreign goods, in small numbers reaching the middle and upper reaches of the Nile, was probably the Meroitic elite. It is logical to assume that the penetration of Mediterranean ceramics into Meroe was facilitated by the trade ties of its northern neighbour – Egypt:trade with the Mediterranean took place through Egyptian river and caravan routes; although hypothetically, one cannot exclude the possibility of goods entering Meroe bypassing Egypt, through the Red Sea ports. Despite a small share of imported products in the Meroitic Kingdom and regardless of the ways of their movement, they had a significant influence on the local pottery manufacturing; a reflection of this process was the appearance in the African kingdom of Hellenistic forms of vessels (kraters, askoses, lekythoi, clepsydras, etc.) and vase painting in the Greek style. As a result, a very special synthesis of artistic ideas emerged, embodied in Meroitic ceramics. Along with the local Nubian features, Egyptian and Hellenistic themes, techniques and ceramic forms are recognized there, which are characteristic for the pottery of Late and Ptolemaic Egypt, ancient Greece and Rome and allows us to see the Kingdom of Meroe as the extreme southern outpost of the Hellenistic world.


2019 ◽  
pp. 44
Author(s):  
Marlown Cuenca Gonzaga

ResumenLa informalidad es parte del paisaje urbano en la ciudad de Quito, ha crecido deprisa y heterogéneamente, desbordada por condicionantes físicas y condicionantes económico-sociales propias de la evolución de las ciudades modernas latinoamericanas, cuya economía depende directamente de la extracción de recursos naturales, esto ha creado dos ciudades con características diferenciadas: la ciudad formal y la ciudad informal. Este estudio trata de entender estos dos modelos a través de una herramienta que analice las relaciones de los componentes urbanos insertados en la globalidad de la complejidad urbana. Desde la hipótesis se comprueba que los barrios de invasión y autoconstrucción generan mecanismos y procesos urbanos evolutivos, que guardan mejores relaciones escalares y relaciones internas de conectividad más dinámicas e intensas que los sistemas planificados convencionales para la vivienda social.AbstractInformality is part of the urban landscape in the city of Quito, it has grown rapidly and heterogeneously, overwhelmed by physical conditions and socio-economic conditions of the evolution of modern Latin American cities, whose economy depends directly on the extraction of natural resources. has created two cities with different characteristics: the formal city and the informal city. This study tries to understand these two models through a tool that analyzes the relationships of the urban components inserted in the globality of urban complexity. From the hypothesis it is verified that the neighborhoods of invasion and self-construction generate evolutionary urban mechanisms and processes, which have better scalar relationships and internal connectivity relationships that are more dynamic and intense than the conventional planned systems for social housing.


1997 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Pimentel ◽  
X. Huang ◽  
A. Codova ◽  
M. Pimentel

The food situation worldwide is becoming critical. At present, more than 2 billion humans are malnourished and experience unhealthy living conditions (FAO, 1992a,b; Neisheim, 1993; McMichael, 1993; Maberly, 1994; Bouis, 1995). The number of humans who also are diseased is the largest number ever, and about 40,000 children die each day from disease and malnutrition (Kutzner, 1991; Tribe, 1994).  The many problems that are now evident emphasize the urgent need to reassess the status of environmental resources. Based on the evidence, definitive plans must be developed to improve environmental management now and for the future. Of major importance is the limiting and slow reduction of human numbers to better balance the carrying capacity of the earth's natural resources. 


2021 ◽  

The Screening Tool for Energy Evaluation of Projects (STEEP) is designed to help improve energy use efficiency in water and wastewater treatment systems. This publication provides a detailed overview of STEEP and guides users on how to apply it during energy use assessments of proposed or existing water supply and wastewater systems. Since 2017, STEEP has been under continuous development based on pilot assessments carried out in various projects financed by the Asian Development Bank. STEEP is available online and can be downloaded for free.


1931 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 110-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. C. Carrington

The remains of 39 villas have been discovered, up to the present, in the region which was covered by lapilli and ash during the eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79. Twelve of these were excavated between the years 1749 and 1782, in the vicinity of Castellammare di Stabia; the rest have been excavated during the last half-century, either in the immediate neighbourhood of Pompeii or in the territory of the modern comuni adjoining it (Boscoreale, Scafati, Gragnano). A list of 36 of the villas arranged in the chronological order of their excavation is given in Rostovtzeff's Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire. Rostovtzeff concludes his note with the words ‘Useful work could be done by a scholar who would devote a little time and care to a study of the Campanian “villae rusticae,” and endeavour to investigate the history of the buildings.’ Unfortunately all of the villas were buried again after their excavation, and, in investigating the history of the buildings, we have only the scanty information furnished by the reports, which, often amounts to nothing at all. Inability to see the buildings, however, would not be such a great disadvantage if, at the time of the excavation, adequate records had been made of the building materials used, and the methods of their use.


2011 ◽  
Vol 7 (S278) ◽  
pp. 382-389 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manuel Pérez Gutiérrez ◽  
Jordi Diloli Fons ◽  
David Bea Castaño ◽  
Samuel Sardà Seuma

AbstractArchaeological excavations carried out at Turó del Calvari (Tarragona, Spain) have revealed a protohistoric building interpreted as one of the earliest enclosures of power operating during the Early Iron Age in the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula. The structure is exceptional in several respects: the techniques of construction, the materials used, and the topographic situation. The building is perfectly integrated in the landscape and has an exquisite geometrical design, with measurement units based on the Iberian foot. The intended beauty in having used the golden ratio in its construction and an orientation that is both stellar and solar demonstrates the existence at that time of a complete series of mechanisms of representation and territorial control. This was based on the use of rituals and feasts as elements of political cohesion by an emergent elite within a process that reproduced a scaled-down Mediterranean cultural system in an indigenous space.


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