Medieval canals spotted from air

BBC ^ | Sunday, August 31, 2008 | unattributed

[SunkenCiv]

Archaeologists have found what they have described as a "breathtaking engineering project" in Lincolnshire.

Almost 60 miles of medieval canals, possibly built by monks to ferry stone, have been identified in the Fens.

Although the canals were up to 40ft wide they have filled up with silt and are now only visible from the air.

Experts said the network of waterways represented an achievement not matched until the Industrial Revolution 300 years later.

Viking raiders

Martin Redding, of the Witham Valley Archaeology Research Committee, discovered the canals using aerial photographs.

"They have been completely infilled by later deposits that have been brought in by flooding eight hundred years.

He added: "These canals are important because they represent a breathtaking engineering project.

"Just think of the skilled engineers, surveyors and huge workforce this scheme would have needed."

Mr Redding said more study was needed but speculated that the canals could have been started as a way of transporting stone to rebuild monastic sites devastated in Viking raids.

[SunkenCiv]

Canal building for drainage and transportation caught on in a large way centuries after this; previously no precursors were considered, AFAIK. By way of analogy, the famous (well, sort of famous) Offa's Dyke, constructed by King Offa of Mercia along his western frontier with the Welsh kingdoms, was once upon a time seen as the model for Wat's Dyke. Turns out Wat's is two or three centuries older than Offa's Dyke and was constructed by the post-Roman kingdom of Wroxeter. The 5th century Wansdyke is also (barely) post-Roman, and ran from Maes Knoll hillfort in the west to south of Marlborough. There are at least eight others, of various lengths, culminating in Offa's Dyke.

[SunkenCiv]

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[Interesting Times]

Ping.

[SunkenCiv]

Bravo for the Wansdyke Project! From the links page:

The Car Dyke
http://homepages.which.net/~rex/bourne/cardyke.htm

[snip] The great channel known as the Car Dyke was probably constructed early in the second century AD and built purely for drainage purposes to produce more fertile land for corn crops... It was most certainly one of the greatest engineering feats carried out by the engineers of the mighty Roman Empire which ruled Britain for almost 400 years from 43 AD to 410 AD and although unlikely, the popular theory persists that it was built to carry food and supplies from East Anglia for their advancing armies in the north, the main cargoes being corn, wool for uniforms, leather for tents and shields, and salted meat. The construction of the canal and subsequent use to provide a continuous inland water transport system from Cambridge to York was responsible for the many communities that sprang up on its banks and have now become established towns and villages. The waterway between Bourne and Morton has shown evidence of the existence of soak ditches parallel to the canal to take the water from the field ditches and discharge it into the canal, a forerunner of our present fenland drainage system. [end]

[purpleraine]

Thanx

[centurion316]

The Romans were masters of hydrology and used this knowlege to engineer vast aqueduct systems to supply water to urban areas. At one time Britain possessed this level of knowledge and technology. I find it interesting that this skill was passed on to medievel institutions. The more we learn about the “Dark Ages”, the more clear it becomes that the shift from a Roman civilization to Saxon England was much more gradual than we have been led to believe. We have been led astray by the absence of written records.

[zot]

Thanks for the ping. No one could do much in the fens without building canals.

[WoofDog123]

Folks interesting in the general topic of aerial archaeology, crop marks of ancient structures and sites, etc., should check out Prehistoric Britain from the Air, by Darvill, NOT by Bord (there are 2 totally different books with the same name).

Tons of pictures showing crop marks of any number of oddities and curiosities. If you are near one of these sites and have seen the pictures, you can sometimes see the marks lightly from the ground yourself. More generally, it makes you look at slight color/tone differences in archeological or other crop areas a lot differently.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Thanks.

[wildbill]

Speaking of Roman hydrology, most people point to the aqueducts which were truly marvels of precision engineering.

However, there is something even more interesting in Spain. The Romans found a mountain that contained deep gold seams. In order to get it out, they constructed a 10 miles long aqueduct from a mountain lake to the top of the mountain, then drilled into the top and used the water from the aqueduct as a water drill to hollow out the mountain’s gold seams.

I saw this on Discover or the History channel once and found a webstie about it on Google but I can’t remember the name of the site. Unfortunately, it is in Spanish.

[norton]

Fun stuff,
Thanks.

[niteowl77]

We have been led astray by the absence of written records.

That, as well as the "renaissance/enlightenment" chroniclers' habit of disparaging or ignoring everything that occurred in Europe between the fall of Rome and the glorious advent of themselves.

Sort of like today's MSM.

Mr. niteowl77

[SunkenCiv]

Roman engineering per se mostly died out after they pulled out, not least because of the economic/trade disruptions during the waves of barbarians heading west from Central Asia as the climate cooled. But that the particular Roman canal survives and still has water in it probably speaks to having been maintained (to some degree) as well as having been well-built in the first place.

OTOH, the Romans built a number of stone bridges throughout Britain, and those vanished, I think entirely, plundered for their building stone. There’s a phenomenon called a “birdfoot”; during the Middle Ages the final slopes toward the riverbank received a longer, slower, less steep lane which were easier to use with carts. The original bridges were gone at the bottom of the hills, and after descent, these new paths either made back to the original spot, or more likely made for a ford. The Romans built bridges on the most direct line, by and large, and that wasn’t necessarily the shallow spot.

canal of Drusus, in the Netherlands:
http://www.livius.org/ga-gh/germania/drusiana.html

wth, more about Drusus:
http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Nero_Drusus

[SunkenCiv]

[snip] The remains at Las Medulas and in surrounding areas show badland scenery on a gigantic scale owing to hydraulicking of the rich alluvial gold deposits. Las Medulas is now a UNESCO World Heritage site. The site shows the remains of at least seven large aqueducts of up to 30 miles in length feeding large supplies of water into the site. The gold-mining operations were described in vivid terms by Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis Historia published in the first century AD. Pliny was a procurator in Hispania Terraconensis in the 70’s and must have witnessed for himself the operations. The use of hushing has been confirmed by field survey and archaeology at Dolaucothi in South Wales, the only known Roman gold mine in Britain. [end]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_mining#Ancient_development

pic:

http://www.superstock.com/stock-photos-images/1566-0102674

[SunkenCiv]

another pic:
http://www.eyefetch.com/image.aspx?ID=447852

another wiki-wacky page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Las_M%C3%A9dulas

(related) Roman Deep-Vein Mining:
http://www.unc.edu/~duncan/personal/roman_mining/deep-vein_mining.htm

and, the only known Roman gold mines in Britain:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolaucothi

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks!

[Monkey Face]

Row, row, row your boat...

[SunkenCiv]

To the left in an area that was once Whittlesea Mere and there is a pile of Bog Oak that has been pulled to the surface and in the corner of a Farmer's field. It is not like normal wood, but a cross between wood and coal, and cannot be cut with an ordinary saw, no more that coal can be cut with a hand saw. The question is, how and why it is brought to the surface? It is common practice for farmers to deep plough these fields to try and bring nourishment in the peat to the surface. Owing to peat shrinkage, these Bog Oaks are often caught by a plough, and are therefore a nuisance to the farmer, who pulls them to surface of the land, and places them in a pile. This is not a common sight nowadays, as most of the Bog Oaks have already been pulled to the surface, as peat is shrinking slower. -- Geography and Geology of Fens Agriculture, Natural History, Food Growing and Roman and Saxon History

[Fred Nerks]

...It is not like normal wood, but a cross between wood and coal, and cannot be cut with an ordinary saw, no more that coal can be cut with a hand saw...

One of a number of trees of the 'petrified forest' North of Lake Qaruninth, Egypt.

Lesvos, Greece.

The rapid covering of tree trunks, branches, and leafs lead to isolation from atmospheric conditions. Along with the volcanic activity, hot solutions of silicon dioxide penetrated and impregnated the volcanic materials that covered the tree trunks. Thus the major fossilisation process started with a molecule by molecule exchange of the organic plant by inorganic materials. In the case of the Petrified forest of Lesvos, the fossilisation was perfect due to favourable fossilisation conditions. Therefore morphological characteristics of the tree trunks such as the annual rings, barkers, as well as the internal structure of the wood, are all preserved in excellent condition.

METASOMATISM.

METASOMATISM (Gr. Aera, change, QW / .(a, body), in petrology, a process of alteration of rocks by which their chemical composition is modified, new substances being introduced while those originally present are partly or wholly removed in solution.

The agencies of metasomatism are in nearly all cases aqueous solutions; probably they were often at a high temperature, as metasomatic changes are especially liable to occur in the vicinity of igneous intrusions (laccolites, dikes and necks) where large quantities of water were given off by the volcanic magma at a time when it had solidified but was not yet cold. Metasomatism also usually goes on at some depth, so that we may readily believe that it is favoured by increase of pressure...

Petrology=petrified trees?

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks, interesting.