Ancient Roman Technology Page 1 of 8 Introduction Ancient Roman Technology/inventions In Rome, they have a lot of invention. Most of them are aqueduct, and they are all great and famous things. But the Roman inventions are way more popular than aqueduct. Today, all over the world still using Roman structure invention. Like the Pentaspastos, now it is crane. These things are some of the Roman technology/inventions. Roman great because of many things like sport, machine, army, legend, mining,... technology is just part of it. Page 2 of 8 Time Line (About ancient Rome) ??? Latin moved to Italy( from Greece) 753BC First man found Rome, Romulus. (Started of Roman monarchy) The last Rome monarchy King, started of Roman Republic. Julius Caesar and his friend governed the Roman Republic The first emperor of Rome, Julius Caesar. Starting Rome Empire 509BC 60BC-27BC 27BC 0 117BC 395BC Jesus birth. Rome reached it largest size. AD476 Been invade by Barbarians. Theodosius dead, left Western and Eastern Empire to his son, Honorius and Arcadius Pont du Gard Page 3 of 8 Pont du Gard: a Roman aqueduct at South of French. It was built in 19BC and finished around first century. It is 275 meters long and 49 meters height, but this is just part of 50 km of the water transport system from Uzès to Nimes. That is long, isn’t it? Anyway, it was built on a river that is name Gardon River. In the ancient Rome, this bridge was use to transport 200 million Litres of water from Uzès to Nimes. This bridge started to transport water from first century and stopped at fifth century because it stops working. The bridge has 3 rows: - The upper row has 35 arches (small), 275m long, 3m width and 7m height. -The middle row has 11 arches (big), 242m long, 4m width and 20m height. - The lower row has 6 arches (big), 142m long, 6m width and 22m height. This is the picture of the water transport system inside the bridge. The bridge was built by one kind of stone that is thick 0.5 m, long 2m and weight 6 tones. The stones are grafted together by precision touch directly at transplant. Each water conduit in the bridge was 1,20m width, 1,85m height and been built by 0,85m thick rock. Today, this bridge is one of the most famous tourist places in the world. Many people admire the ancient Roman technology. In 1985, this Pont du Gard bridge, been admit to be one of the seventh greatest wonder in the world by the UNESCO. Page 4 of 8 Hierapolis sawmills: This is a Roman waterpowered stone sawmill. It uses the strength of water to cut hard thing like stone, wood,... It was made in the second half of the 3rd century AD. Marcus Aurelius Ammianos, a local miller. He is the one who invent of this machine. More clearly, this was not made in second half of the 3rd century AD, it was found in this year. Some people found relief on Marcus tomb in a temple. On the pediment, they saw a water wheel fed by a mill race ( a small river that people made) is shown powering via a gear train two frame saws cutting rectangular blocks by the way of connecting rods and, through mechanical necessity, crank.(on the picture) Today, in some country, they still use this sawmills. But it changes a bit in some country like easier to make. In Vietnam they use this too. Page 5 of 8 Pentaspastos: The Pentaspastos is an old machine in Roman. It was makes a long time ago, even farther than the ancient Rome. It is easy to carry; you just need one man to carry this thing. First, tie two ropes from the top of the machine to the ground. Make it stretch as hard as you can (in the picture), so that when you turn the hand wheel on two side of the wood scroll (in the picture. This machine look simple but you just need a small strength of your body, to take everything that is lower than 411kg. So this is one of the things that make ancient Rome strong, because of their genius invention. Today, don’t use this anymore. But they still this instruction. They just upgrade it. They called crane. Now, they use this just for building. Page 6 of 8 Road: Road. A very old invention in Roman, help us go easier, comfortable and it can help us. We can know where are we going too because it is just on one way. But that is just in the ancient Rome. Now, forget it. Road can be made by many thing for example: Rock, hard ground,... There are many kind of road in the ancient Rome and everyone still use them today. At there are no barricade on the road and it is more comfortable when you walk on it too, because it is balance on a straight line. Not up and down and up again like mountain, to complicate to walk. In the ancient Rome, the entire roads in Italy have to go pass Rome in the ancient time. It is hard for Roman people because Europe have many mountains, very danger. But Roman people still built road on it, and they don’t even think that rocks can hit their head and they goanna dead, or lose their mind ... But they make a very good effort on building it. This is a picture of their effort on one of the Europe Mountain. Beautiful and safety, right? Today, road is everywhere in the world, and they go around very crazy, like the picture above. Road have many kind. And each kind of road was use for different things. Most of it is for walking and transport like car, bus... Page 7 of 8 Plough: Plough! Not a very interest invention IF, you just look at it. But it is a very great invention. They are simple, but they are mighty. It is small, about our body. After we harvest vegetable like tomato, the ground solid again. Then we use this to make the ground soft, so that we can plant another . We don’t use hand to do this. We get help from the buffalo. Page 8 of 8