The Domitii Mark -- Rome's Greatest Brickmakers Identified

Discovery News ^ | August 9, 2005 | Rossella Lorenzi

[SunkenCiv]

Found in Mugnano in Teverina, a tiny village some 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of Rome, the furnaces belonged to Tullus and Lucanus, brothers of the Domitii family, as an inscription found on the road leading to the brickfield confirms: "iter privatum duorum Domitiorum" (private road of the two Domitii). The furnaces provided bricks for grandiose buildings such as the Colosseum, the Pantheon, the Market of Trajan and the Diocletian and Caracalla Baths, said archaeologist Tiziano Gasperoni, who discovered the furnaces.

[SunkenCiv]

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[SunkenCiv]

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[wildbill]

I'm sure these buildings had bricks--but the most important architectural feature of Roman engineering was their discovery and use of concrete. The concrete process was lost for hundreds of years during the Dark Ages, but it was the strength and malleability of concrete that made the great acqueducts and buildings with domes possible.

[SunkenCiv]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1458504/posts?page=34#34

[Dustbunny]

The Roman's were way ahead of there times on many, many things.

[Pyro7480]

The secret to Roman concrete was the use of volcanic material, and when they set the concrete into place, they used special tools to pound the excess water out of the concrete.

[Ciexyz]

most cool.

[Drammach]

I'm sure these buildings had bricks--but the most important architectural feature of Roman engineering was their discovery and use of concrete.

The Romans didn't use bricks so much as a structural material as a decorative facade..
Concrete made up the "bones" and the outside face was "prettied up" with fancy brickwork, often stamped or pressed with designs to make them look even better..

You're right about the concrete..
Cement was first used by the Assyrians, and the Egyptians were familiar with it as well..
The Etruscans used "additive" in their cement, so it might qualify as a sort of concrete, but concrete is defined by the use of "aggregate", i.e., the crushed rock, small stone and gravel added to the cement..
And that is, truly a roman "invention" or discovery, depending on how you look at it..

Something else the Romans did not many know about..
They learned that concrete / cement could be made "stickier" with the addition of gluten..
In the case of the Romans, they used, for the most part, wheat, boiled down into a thick sticky liquid.. This was then added to the concrete (or cement) mix to insure superior adhesion..

The Chinese, I believe, did the same thing, using another, similar ingredient.. Rice..
Again, boiled down to make rice glue, then added to the cement / concrete..

[wildbill]

Thanks for all the great detail on the concrete. I saw something on Discovery or the History Channel about it on "inventions" show.

It's hard to undersand how the knowledge completely died out sometime between the fall of Rome in the 5th century and the late 18th century and the invention of Portland cement in 1824.

[wildbill]

Here's one for our glyphs gang. I'm looking for something I saw once on a Discovery Channel or History channel show.

It was about a remarkable engineering feat of the Romans in Spain when they were mining gold out of a mountain. Somehow they dugs shafts throughout the mountain and then introduced water to a shaft at the top, using the hydraulic power of the water/gravity combination to almost completely hollow out the mountain.

Did anyone else ever see that show or know anything about it? It was a remarkable feat.

[SunkenCiv]

dunno. Maybe this one?

http://perso.wanadoo.es/emmcr/

[wildbill]

I bet you're right after I did a rough translation of some of the pages. I don't know how you found it. Now all I gotta do is try to find the time and translate.

I wonder if I could get this into Google translations somehow?

[SunkenCiv]

I found it using Google, but failed to click the "Translate this page" link, or perhaps it wasn't there to click. But plastering the URL shown directly into the Google translator (on the Google home page, click "Language tools" I think it's called) should help.

[SunkenCiv]

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