Posted on 07/14/2010 5:43:49 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Scholars discovered the 100-yard-wide (90-metre-wide) canal at Portus, the ancient maritime port through which goods from all over the Empire were shipped to Rome for more than 400 years. The archaeologists... believe the canal connected Portus, on the coast at the mouth of the Tiber, with the nearby river port of Ostia, two miles away. It would have enabled cargo to be transferred from big ocean-going ships to smaller river vessels and taken up the River Tiber to the docks and warehouses of the imperial capital. Until now, it was thought that goods took a more circuitous overland route along a Roman road known as the Via Flavia... The subterranean outline of the canal was found during a survey... using geophysical instruments which revealed magnetic anomalies underground... The archeologists have found evidence that trading links with North Africa in particular were far more extensive than previously believed. They have found hundreds of amphorae which were used to transport oil, wine and a pungent fermented fish sauce called garum, to which the Romans were particularly partial, from what is now modern Tunisia and Libya. Huge quantities of wheat were also imported from what were then the Roman provinces of Africa and Egypt... The British team believe that Portus and Ostia would have been home to a large expatriate population of North African trading families and commercial agents, some of whom had their names inscribed on tomb stones. Portus was the main port of ancient Rome for more than 500 years and provided a conduit for everything from glass, ceramics, marble and slaves to wild animals caught in Africa and shipped to Rome for spectacles in the Colosseum. Work on the massive infrastructure project began under the emperor Claudius. It was inaugurated by Nero and later greatly enlarged by Trajan.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
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Aye, Claudius! |
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Amazing!
Ah yes...the mother of all route canals!
Bump for later perusal. Those giant Roman cargo carriers were really something.
Anybody have a map of where Portus was/is actually located in Italy?
It remains a little odd to me that this came as a surprise to any specialists in Roman history or archaeology. I mean, how the hell do these birds think the Romans moved obelisks up to 300 tons in weight from Egypt to Rome — overland? Caligula had at least eight 200 ton one-piece columns quarried in Egypt and brought by sea for a temple he was building to himself, and his pleasure barge was discovered in the early 20th c, buried in a dried up inland lake. It displaced over 200 tons. Unfortunately, it was destroyed during the WWII battles for Italy. :’(
I'm pretty sure that ancient Portus is now what is known as Fiumicino, which is the coastal town adjacent (west and a bit south) of modern Rome that lays at the mouth of the Tiber River. It's where da Vinci airport is, if you're familiar with Rome.
“All right... all right... but apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order... what have the Romans done for us?”
Very interesting. Thanks for the post & link to the map. Thank for the link PA E, LOL!
Thanks. Interesting.
Fascinating! Thanks for the ping sc :)
Thanks for the laugh!
LOL! Quick wit.
SC, Do you happen to have any documentation on Caligula’s (not Obama-hehe) pleasure barge which may include pictures....(yes...I’m one of those humans that need p-i-c-t-u-r-e-s when at all possible :) )
Hey, I’ve only got four hands.
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