APRA - Atlas Project of Roman Aqueducts

Cees Passchier, Driek van Opstal, Wilke Schram 2008
University of Mainz, Germany; Utrecht University, the Netherlands
Please contact: Cees Passchier


An aqueduct initiative

Roman aqueducts are amongst the most impressive and interesting remains that have survived from the Ancient World. Although aqueduct bridges are best known, the complete structures with basins, siphons, drop shafts and distribution stations are impressive feats of engineering even by todays standards. Over 800 roman aqueducts have been documented in the Mediterranean basin, with a total channel length of at least 5.000 km.
The presently known sites of roman
aqueducts - image from the APRA database

The Atlas Project of Roman Aqueducts is an initiative of Cees Passchier, Wilke Schram and Driek van Opstal. The project aims to collect all published data on roman aqueducts built in the period 300 BC to 400 AD within the boundaries of the roman Empire. For this purpose, we are setting up a database of the available literature and collect published maps and other topographic data on the still existing remains of the aqueducts. By necessity, we concentrate our attention on the large aqueducts that served cities and towns, but we also include interesting small aqueducts that served villas and sanctuaries. We have started this initiative because of the following reasons:
  1. ancient aqueducts are a valuable element of the joint cultural heritage of all people in the Mediterranean basin
  2. they are a unique source of scientific data. Aqueducts give information on knowledge levels in hydrology and civil engineering in the ancient world, and on the social life and history of cities; aqueducts can give unique information on earthquake activity in the Mediterranean basin which can help us to understand the dangers posed by specific geological faults in the Earths crust; and travertine deposits in aqueducts carry information on land use, deforestation, and the climate in roman times.
  3. the literature on roman aqueducts is difficult to access, written in more than 20 different languages, and spread over libraries throughout Europe.
  4. aqueducts are vulnerable and much more likely to suffer damage and destruction than remains of towns or sanctuaries which can be fenced in. Aqueducts are harder to protect because they are narrow, ribbon-like structures in the topography, commonly away from centers of habitation and (apart from the bridges) not preserved as attractive and photogenic ruins.
One important reason that aqueducts are commonly damaged or destroyed is that there is no central database of the location of their remains. APRA aims to improve this situation in the following manner:
  1. by setting up a database based on the corpus of published literature on roman aqueducts. We presently have data on over 800 aqueducts. We store data on technical aspects of the aqueducts, preserved remains and their location and access, building history, available literature and images
  2. by collecting all published topographic data on aqueducts and storing this information in GIS platforms such as MapInfo and GoogleEarth
GIS based map of the trace of aqueducts in W-Anatolia
GIS-based map of the remains of the Serino aqueduct

Publication

The database and map data will be made available in two manners:
  1. in the form of a printed atlas, which will contain maps of the aqueducts and preserved remains, and basic information, with some photographs of the most important remains. Because of the volume of material, we will restrict entries to the most basic information, but with a full reference list and index
    For the proposed format of pages from the Atlas of roman aqueducts, see below.
  2. in the form of a website, where more details and more photographs will be made available which cannot be placed in the Atlas. This website will be an expansion of the present Aquasite pages. The website will be expanded with a search function where the basic information from our database will be made available to the public.

Call for support

This is a private initiative of the authors, and we do not obtain financial sponsoring at present for this initiative. However, we DO rely on the help of all those people who work with or have data on roman aqueducts to obtain the material to reach our goal, to build a central database and a series of maps on roman aqueducts. We therefore invite all readers of our website to contribute references, papers, maps, photographs and any useful information to set up and expand the APRA database.

Please contact: Cees Passchier
HOME More literature on more aqueducts Last modified: October 2008


Proposed format of pages from the Atlas of roman aqueducts