Comparisons to the durability of modern roads at Reddit.
Reposted from 2016 to add this interesting video on how the Romans constructed their roads (via Open Culture, where there is another video and additional links)
The bit about the "side ditches" is new to me, and interesting. Perhaps there was a fee assessed for locals to use the roads and only limited access points. A corollary would be that these Roman roads could be enormously disruptive to any local economy.
Reposted again to add this high-quality map of the "all roads lead to Rome" network:
The new embed is from an interesting article in The New York Times:
"... a study published last month in the Nature journal Scientific Data significantly updated the estimated size of the Roman Empire’s road system, increasing its total length to 187,460 miles from about 120,000 miles. Rome probably achieved peak road sometime around A.D. 150, when the empire was at its most prosperous and extensive. But the database tallies all the roads presumed to have existed during Rome’s life span, from roughly 312 B.C. to A.D. 400.The data set does not reflect one particular year or even century because sadly, for the entire empire, we cannot confidently say how the road system changed within the entire Roman period,” Tom Brughmans, an archaeologist at Aarhus University in Denmark who collaborated on the paper, wrote in an email. “We definitely have chronological information for some roads, but this is a minority...Dr. Brughmans and his colleagues defined Roman roads more broadly to include any walkable path and used a practical, terrain-following mapping technique, rather than imposing unrealistic straight lines. The change substantially increased mapped networks in North Africa, Greece and the Iberian Peninsula..."
The Scientific Data link is a detailed longread with multiple supplementary maps and extensie discussion. I would add a reminder that the video embedded in the middle of the post is concise and excellent in presenting information.
I will also add that I have read (but don't have a citation handy) that some scholars have suggested that the great pandemics of the world, like the infamous Black Plague, were facilitated by this roads network. Diseases that might in earlier times have been limited to small regions were able to travel widely when the vehicles on the roads provided transit for rats, fleas, and other vectors.
cobblestoned streets last forever as well. of course, it is kind of funny to see how poorly the cobblestones are put back after some 'dig we must' happens. that skill is gone!
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It's admirable that the road would last that long, but do we suppose it would have lasted that long if it were highway with automobiles?
ReplyDeleteTo compare a stone road with asphalt might not give us a fair comparison.
I am reminded of what was called the American Road (I think it might have been among the very earlies government outlays for such things). Like the Romans, the road bed was first prepared. Eventually stones were brought on site. Many of these stones were broken down into small gravel by the men working on the road. The larger stones were placed at some point. I'm not sure of exactly whether the small gravel was used to fill in spaces between larger stones or to simply make the roadbed more durable.
ReplyDeletePerhaps this one?
Deletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Road
Minnesotastan, indeed--the NATIONAL Road (I wrongly called it the American Road). Thank you!
DeleteHow quickly could a letter cross the Roman empire? (on those roads...) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrNgvj0eO9I
ReplyDeleteThe Incas also created roads (and they were masters at shaping stones such that, in walls, not only was no mortar needed, but you couldn't hardly place a piece of paper between the stones).
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