Series II
The Chronos File
Each film takes one mechanism of the ancient world and follows it from the ancient text to what modern engineering and laboratory work now say about it. So far there is one. It asks why Roman harbour concrete still stands in seawater.
The film
Play the first film: Roman concrete and seawater: why the harbours still stand 13:28
One film so far. It runs as a single piece.
The plate, keyed to Vitruvius 2.6.1, translated by M. H. Morgan (1914)
- a“...even when piers of it are constructed in the sea, they set hard under water.” 2.6.1
The first film
Roman concrete and seawater: why the harbours still stand
“There is also a kind of powder which from natural causes produces astonishing results.” Vitruvius 2.6.1
- Runtime
- 13:28
- Rests on
- Vitruvius 2.6; Pliny, Natural History 35; Jackson et al. 2017; Seymour et al. 2023
See also
The corvus and the Battle of Mylae: how Rome built a navy, 260 BC
Roman building at sea of another kind: the fleet of 260 BC.
Episode 2, 27:43