ROME'S TREMENDOUS TUNNEL

SpiegelOnLine ^ | 03/11/2009 | By Matthias Schulz

[Fred Nerks]

How the aqueduct worked.

[Fred Nerks]

Mathias Döring. Using theodolites, GPS readers and ample safety equipment, the team charts the depths of the tunnel.

[beebuster2000]

amazing

[airborne]

I wonder how long before Muslims claim it is an Islamic holy site.

[Vaduz]

The monumental effort took more than a century, I guess that’s how long it will take America to erect a wall at the Mexican border?

[Verginius Rufus]

Back when Jimmy Carter first started talking about a Palestinian homeland, someone suggested digging a moat along the Mexican border and using the dirt from that to construct a Palestinian homeland.

[Wuli]

They won’t claim it.

They will destroy it, as they do now in Iran and Saudi Arabia (Wahabis and Iranian Shia fundamentalists) with any artifact, monument or shrine that predates Islam and/or conflicts with lifting up their own sect of Islam.

[Paladin2]

"100 kilometers of stone"

That's a fair distance to tunnel.

[hinckley buzzard]

The monumental effort took more than a century,

That's what I call a people with faith in their future.

[airborne]

The monumental effort took more than a century, I guess that’s how long it will take America to erect a wall at the Mexican border?

Border? We don't need no steenkin' border!

MexAmeriCanada baby!

(sarcasm)

[airborne]

Well they sure love to tunnel into Israel! ;^)

[muawiyah]

There are hundreds of thousands of miles of similar (but less precisely built) tunnels throughout Iran. So far there’ve been no sightings of Moslems destroying those tunnels simply because they pre-date Mohammad. In fact, they jealously guard them since that’s how they get water.

[SES1066]

There are hundreds of thousands of miles of similar (but less precisely built) tunnels throughout Iran.

I believe that you are writing about Qanats Which are also an amazing feat of engineering in the Indo-Aryan desert areas. According to the Wikipedia article, the oldest of these in Iran may date from around the time of Cyrus the Great (700 BCE).

However, in defense of this article, I don't think these qanats were built by invading forces with century+ mindsets. This aqueduct project is amazing.

[muawiyah]

The Persian tunnels built in what is now Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Israel, et al were definitely constructed by people who liked water and were quite willing to have the locals provide all the labor for the tunnel and canal jobs.

So, yes, the Persians were as devoted to having water as were the Romans.

Speaking of century long ambitions, they've been building the New York City subway for MORE THAN A CENTURY and will never be done!

[TimeLord]

“What have the @#!??!&*@! Romans ever given us?”
“The aqueduct?”

— Monty Python’s “The Life of Brian”

[Radix]

"Back when Jimmy Carter first started talking about a Palestinian homeland, someone suggested digging a moat along the Mexican border and using the dirt from that to construct a Palestinian homeland."

Good idea.

[bert]

I find it amazing that you would be carping about a wall on a thread about tunnels. The thread describes in detail how ancient engineers were able to go for hundreds of kilometers under ground.

The thrust of the piece undermines your demand for a wall. The wall won’t stop anything. A dedicated tunneling effort will render it worthless

[beebuster2000]

i wonder what tools they used? i dont think they had steel, did they?

[SamAdams76]

The engineers of the empire invented standardized lead pipes, aqueducts as high as fortresses, and water mains with 15 bars (217 pounds per square inch) of pressure. In the capital alone there were thousands of fountains, drinking troughs and thermal baths...

But aside from all that, what have the Romans ever done for us?

[Paladin2]

Why is it dry now?