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This is a study of the organization and provision of the water supply of Constantinople in Late Antiquity, which also provides a comparison with the case of Rome. It integrates textual evidence with the detailed evidence provided from recent structural and hydrogeological research undertaken by the author. As the New Rome came into the ascendant throughout the fourth and fifth centuries surviving legislation reveals divergent approaches to the maintenance of the urban water supply in the two cities. The evidence further demonstrates the symbolic as well as the practical value of investment in the urban infrastructure. In particular the sources appear to suggest how the maintenance of the aqueducts came to dominate urban euergetism at Constantinople at the expense of other aspects of civic display. Finally, the comparative element of the study helps deepen our understanding of the diverging narratives of the two imperial cities.

This chapter provides detailed information about the Roman aqueducts, ranging from the position and importance of the water sources to the course and volume of the aqueducts and the number and organization of the personnel employed in this critical branch of the Roman public administration. It presents the summary created by Frontinus about the history of how Rome's citizens obtained water during the centuries stretching from the city's foundation to the creation of the aqueducts.

This chapter is concerned with the organization of complex settlements in the Islamic period. These can be defined as towns, cities, and palaces although the boundaries between such categories are not always well defined. The first section considers the nature of urban spaces in early Islam, and particularly the ways in which archaeology can refine our understanding of Arabic terms like madina and misr. This section also explores the evolution of large-scale Islamic palaces which take on some of the characteristics of cities. The second section assesses the evidence for urban material culture in different Islamic regions. The final section is devoted to the provision of water to urban areas, and explores the archaeology of aqueducts, drainage, fountains, and cisterns.

In the sixth century BCE, Greek philosophers acquired the elements of geometry and of surveying from Egypt. However, it was only in the early third century BCE, when the famous library and museum at Alexandria was established, that more sophisticated surveying theory and of more versatile and accurate instruments were developed. As a result, surveying instruments entered the realm of high technology for the first time, drawing on scientific theory and feeding back to it. This chapter examines the instruments, techniques, and achievements of surveyors in ancient Greece and Rome, with special reference to the planning of roads, aqueducts, and tunnels. Two such instruments are the groma, the exact counterpart of the dioptra in horizontal mode, and the libra.

Pre-modern settlements generally grew around some major source of water, such as a river, a lake, or a pond. This would provide not only potable water but also a security barrier. Fathpur Sikri was located beside a natural seasonal lake which was regulated by the construction of barrages to control the flow of water and result in a perennial supply. Towards the old settlement a bund defined the limits of this artificially created water body, which from the north-west and the south was contained by the ridge. Elaborate arrangements were made to lift water to the palaces and supply it to the various areas where it was needed. A number of water tanks, some open, while others closed, and elaborate channels, ducts, and aqueducts were also constructed besides wells and step-wells (baolis). In order to lift the water from the ground to the top of the ridge, a series of Persian-wheels were put to use.

The prevalence of profound deafness in the United Kingdom is reported as 9 per 10,000 in 3-year-olds to 16 per 10,000 in 9- to 16-year-olds, although it is estimated that these figures may be higher because of possible under-diagnosing (Fortnum et al. 2001). In England and Scotland, approximately 13 in 10,000 children have a permanent hearing impairment of 40 dB or more (moderate to profound) across the frequencies 500–4,000 Hz (Fortnum and Davis, 1997; Fortnum, 2003; Kennedy and McCann, 2008; MacAndie et al. 2003) and in 11 in 10,000 this loss is congenital. The remainder are acquired or progressive. Profound impairment (≥95 dB loss) occurs in 2.4 per 10,000. Bilateral sensorineural deafness had a prevalence of 21 per 10,000 in a Finnish birth cohort (1974–1987) (Vartiainen, Kemppinen, and Karjalainen 1997). A survey in the general population in Sichuan, China, found a prevalence of 1.9 per 1,000 profound deafness (Liu et al. 1993). Table 44.1 shows the World Health Organization (WHO) and British Society of Audiology definitions of degrees of deafness. Sensorineural deafness involves problems either in hair cell function in the cochlear or in the nerve transmission of sound. For bilateral sensorineural deafness, the diagnosis is made at variable ages in health systems in which there is no universal neonatal screening. This varies across cultures, but can still be surprisingly late even in modern health systems. One study of 106 children with bilateral sensorineural deafness showed a mean age for first diagnosis at 42 months (median 33 months) of age, with a range from 4 months to 11 years of age (Walch 2003). In another study in Glasgow, Scotland (Chaurasia and Geddes, 2008), only 50% of early childhood deafness presented before 2 years of age. Conductive deafness involves problems with sound travelling from the outer ear, through the middle ear, to the cochlear. The commonest cause is otitis media (“glue ear”), with losses usually in the mild to moderate range. About half of children between 2 and 4 years will have at least one episode of otitis media with effusion (OME) (Zielhuis, Rach, and Van den Brock 1990).

This chapter examines the complex effort undertaken in Rome to rediscover the entire course of an ancient aqueduct, the Acqua Vergine and to repair it in order to make it fully functional. It discusses the ancient Roman aqueducts and their remains in the sixteenth century. It also discusses the papal librarian, Agostino Steuco's investigation of the entire course of the Acqua Vergine in the 1540s, and later, in the 1560s under Pius IV, Antonio Trevisi's failed effort to repair the aqueduct, and Pirro Ligorio's bitter complaints about the project and his exclusion from it. The chapter treats the many conflicts between the Capitoline Council and the papacy concerning financing the repair and concerning Treviso's contract. Finally, it investigates the successful repair of the aqueduct under Pius V by two architects, Giacomo della Porta and Bartolomeo Grippetto, under the supervision of the jurist and member of the Capitoline Council, Luca Peto, and the oversight of Cardinal Montepulciano. The chapter focuses on the processes of repairing the aqueduct, and the conflicts engendered by that large-scale hydraulic infrastructure project. It also discusses the Roman fountains that were constructed after the completed repair made sufficient water available.

This chapter focuses on two important areas of Roman infrastructure: the repair of bridges over the Tiber River and the construction of a new aqueduct, the Acqua Felice. For both, it discusses the struggles between the papacy and the Capitoline Council about raising the money and carrying out these costly and complex projects. Urban finances were an on-going problem. Concerning the bridges, the chapter discusses Pius IV's failed attempt to repair the Ponte Santa Maria, and its later successful repair by Matteo Bartolini da Castello under Gregory XIII. The same architect failed in his attempt to accurately measure the gradient for the Acqua Felice. The construction of this aqueduct was finally completed by Giovanni Fontana, brother of the more famous Domenico Fontana. The chapter details the complex construction methods for building the aqueduct, and discusses the Moses Fountain,which was built at its terminus. Its success brought plentiful water to the hills of Rome, especially the Quirinal, and the palaces and gardens that were built there.

This chapter explores how Americans followed John Muir in celebrating the natural wonder of California, especially as represented in paintings by the Rocky Mountain School. Settlers, however, following the call of Edward James Wickson, were attracted by the state’s agricultural potential, and men like William Hammond Hall and William Mulholland engineered a mighty infrastructure of dams and aqueducts rivaling the structures of ancient Mediterranean civilizations. The state set up cooperatives to help small independent growers prosper in viticulture and citriculture, fulfilling the Jeffersonian ideal of a culture of engaged citizen farmers. In the early twentieth century a new generation of plein-air painters (John Bond Francisco, Elmer Wachtel, and Maurice Braun) depicted the arcadian landscape thus being shaped.

Chapter 14 takes another break from the historical narrative to discuss the major Roman building projects in Athens, which some scholars argue brought about a Romanization of the city and led to its becoming a provincial one. The argument is made that despite Roman buildings, Athens remained a Greek city. The chapter discusses the Roman Agora; the Temple of Roma and Augustus in front of the Parthenon; Agrippa’s Odeum; the lesser public works under the post Julio-Claudian emperors; and Hadrian’s great building program (including the completion of the monumental Temple to Olympian Zeus (Olympieion), a library, an aqueduct), second only to that of Augustus, with a nod to the next chapter to explain why he did what he did. The funerary monument to Philopappus, not at the behest of an emperor but still part of a building program because of Roman style in its architecture, is also discussed. Finally, the chapter examines the transplanting of some temples from the Attic countryside during this period and why this occurred, and the reuse of earlier (especially Classical) statues dedicated to Romans, as part of a plan of the Athenians to keep their heritage alive and not have statues removed to Rome.

Although there is good evidence that irrigation played an important role in Roman agriculture, it has so far received too little attention. This paper seeks to address the subject of its funding at different scales. Among the different choices landholders had to make, investments in hydraulic infrastructure were guided by their particular needs for cultivation and breeding, the environmental context, and the management of a natural and sometimes limited resource. The attention is here turned towards the financial, human, and material nature of the investment required. The cross-reading of archaeological sources with literary and legal texts shows that the costs of irrigation in single estates varied according to the technical constraints (length and construction of the conduit, necessity to store water, etc.), but the efforts made to invest also reflect the profits expected. A key element concerning investments towards irrigation, in any case, lies in the access to water. In that respect, Roman law played an essential role through servitude rights.

The wealth and peace which marked the first decades of the Ostrogothic rule over Italy ushered in a time of intense building activity. As a revival and restoration of Roman culture and tradition, Theoderic promoted the renovation of public monuments and infrastructures in key centres such as Rome, Milan, Verona, and Ravenna, but also in several other towns of the kingdom. In this context the upkeep of urban supply systems and waterworks figures prominently in the archaeological evidence and authors of the time. In this respect, Ostrogothic Italy shows a high degree of technological, administrative, and ideological continuity with regard to the Roman past. Notwithstanding the growing involvement of the church in water management, public authorities remained the main actors in this field.

The United States is more wedded to vehicles than is any other nation, and “freedom” to many Americans seemingly means driving their individual vehicles anywhere they choose. Opinion polls commonly show high proportions of U.S. citizens more concerned about gas prices, potholed highways, or restrictions on vehicle access to backcountry washes and dirt roads than about government scandals, stolen elections, or environmental damage. Unfortunately, vehicles and roads exact a huge toll on lives and health and threaten our future well-being. Driving wheeled vehicles, and constructing roads to support them, comes close to topping the list of humankind’s most environmentally damaging activities. On most soils, even foot traffic creates tracks, trails, and roads. After ancient people invented wheeled vehicles to carry their burdens and themselves, they found that running water quickly rutted and potholed the cart tracks, and gully erosion chopped them up on slopes. Rainstorms eroded the tracks, flooding the dislodged sediment into streams and creeks and burying downslope croplands. Rutted tracks prevented Roman chariots from driving as fast as they were designed to go, so the talented Roman engineers quite naturally invented paved roads—some with better staying power than asphalt highways. But Roman paving did not solve the erosion problems that roads created, and in some ways made it worse. Today, some parts of the United States contain more motorized vehicles than people. The varied vehicle uses, including military training, have vastly proliferated roads and roadlike corridors—especially numerous utility routes—across every type of American landscape. Erosional forces and their effects have not changed since Roman times, but modern engineers still fail to choose transportation routes or build roads to minimize environmental damages. The roads spread severe erosional effects everywhere, along with pervasive pollution. On top of it all, television images encourage Americans to take recreational cars, trucks, motorcycles, and all-terrain vehicles anywhere we wish. The naked ruts they create are an insidious form of road building.

The western United States has low overall rainfall and snowfall levels, few rivers, and many deep groundwater basins. Small Native American populations once lived within the restraints of aridity by seeking harmony with nature. But owning land in such an arid region means little or nothing without a supply of fresh water. Instead of limiting population growth in the face of scarce and unpredictable rainfall, however, the west’s aridity challenged the newcomers to redirect water supplies and make the rich desert soils bloom. The region’s localized precipitation, generally doled out on boom-and-bust schedules, has made water “the most essential and fought over resource in the western United States.” Raising a lone voice of warning in 1893, western explorer John Wesley Powell foresaw that irrigating western lands would pile up “a heritage of conflict and litigation over water rights for there is not sufficient water to supply the land.”2 That Powell was right about conflicts goes without saying, for the west’s bitter heritage of water wars speaks for itself.3 Invading Americans used legal doctrines of first appropriation and “beneficial use” to take water from Indians’ lands and then turned to taking it from each other, oblivious to the effects on wildlife and natural habitats. Today’s depleted river flows and overpumped groundwater basins indicate that Powell probably was right about water supply limits, too. Expanding populations and increasing water contamination have strained supplies of fresh, clean water, even as per capita water demands decrease. By the 1970s, degraded natural settings, rising water pollution, and disappearing native fauna had lowered the quality of western life and built a constituency for environmental protection. But the 1970 National Environmental Policy Act and 1973 Endangered Species Act simply pitted environmental groups and courts against irrigators, cities, and states. In an ironic reversal, recently enriched Native Americans are poised to exercise their primary legal claims to many western rivers.

The purpose of this book is six-fold: . to introduce the technical advances and historical development of selected irrigation-based, hydraulic societies of the pre-Columbian New World (Peru, Bolivia, and Guatemala) and describe their contributions to the history of the hydraulic sciences; to record the final testament from sites now destroyed by modern development or natural erosion processes that contain information on technology achievements . to address open questions in the archaeological literature regarding hydraulic and hydrological issues for Old World, New World, and South-East Asian societies with new information and research results from computational fluid dynamics (CFD) computer modelling studies; to present findings relevant to hydraulic sciences from sites not previously reported in the literature . to introduce new findings from analysis of selected water systems of the ancient Old World and South-East Asia (specifically Petra, Ephesos, Priene, Aspendos, Caesarea, Angkor Wat, and Bali) related to innovations in hydraulics technology . to present mathematical models and examples of the working dynamics of New World hydraulic societies that show that their underlying actions are based on logical economic and engineering principles that maximize food resources commensurate with population growth and climatic challenges . to show that ancient New World societies installed and managed urban and agricultural water systems based on sound engineering principles that took into account climate variations (floods and droughts) and developed defensive hydraulic strategies to combat their negative effects . to provide insight into the thought processes of the technocrats of ancient societies responsible for agricultural development and use of land and water resources through application of engineering principles (as they understood them); to discuss facets of their administrative structure and political economy, and show that technical innovation altered the historical development of societies through increased economic advantages. One path in the development of history of technology originates from discovery processes that utilize archival historical and archaeological resources. From these sources, early scientific and engineering principles that form the technology foundation of modern societies are uncovered, analysed, and categorized and then shown to be early steps to later useful, modern inventions. An alternative, but less deterministic, path originates from the viewpoint that while some engineering developments may serve a society dealing with survival and economic development issues, they represent an empirical trial-and-error process with no real understanding of underlying scientific principles and thus hold only academic interest with minor relevance to the history of science.

At Miletus we saw a distinction between the workmen contracted to construct the arcades and the architect who designed them. Ancient building projects were usually dominated by architects, who directed a large number of subordinate workmen. Whereas the workmen sometimes challenged an instruction, the architect at the top identified more with the project, and his opportunity for social prestige was greater. Since Aristotle, architects were considered to be both ‘wiser’ and ‘more valued’ than manual workers, because they knew the ‘causes’ of a building project. At Patara it was not only the Velii Proculi as patrons who gained glory from new architectural forms. In the odeion stood a statue to the architect Dionysius of Sardis. He is described as ‘skilled in all works of Athena’, which recalls the mention of this goddess at Miletus; but the ‘future fame’ that his statue commemorated was for a work of architecture and engineering of which any Roman would have been proud: the great roof over the odeion itself. Another who made a professional reputation for himself beyond his home city was Marcus Aurelius Pericles of Mylasa, who was honoured at Rome for his success in architecture, described as ‘the greatest art of countless people’. To understand the monumentality of Roman architecture, then, we need to consider the views of architects. One should bear in mind, however, that the architectural profession in antiquity was very diverse. Indeed, there was no idea of a ‘profession’ at all in the modern sense of recognized qualifications and a relatively stable corporate identity. It is difficult to evaluate the social position of those architects whose names are recorded across the Roman Empire, as the mainly epigraphic evidence for their existence is both diffuse and varied, coming from areas as heterogeneous in social structure as imperial Rome, cities in Asia Minor, villages in late Roman Syria, and military settlements on the north-western frontier. In Greece and Asia Minor an individual called an architektōn might have been either a civic magistrate, with no professional activity in the design process, though sometimes involved with public building; a religious official, with responsibility for the buildings of a sanctuary; or a practising architect, either employed by a city or working independently.

Monumental architecture, then, strengthened a sense of public or civic identity in Antonine cities. But, because a public building could assert the political power of a city and, in so doing, challenge the aspirations of a rival city, it was potentially destabilizing in the context of the Empire as a whole. A balance had to be struck between the development of urban forms that reinvigorated a city’s urban identity and promoted the power of local elites loyal to Rome, and the consolidation of the unity of the Empire. Public buildings were the symbols of their city’s separate identity, but they could also represent the power of Rome and its ruling dynasty. Although provincial public buildings were mainly funded by the largesse of local elites, they could also be the result of imperial initiatives or a combination of local funding and imperial support. How far was this involvement of the emperor and his staff motivated by the attempt to control or ‘harmonize’ the architectural appearance of provincial cities? The following two chapters address the question of how, under the Antonines, supposedly civic buildings became, in effect, ‘imperial architecture’. This chapter examines the role of Antoninus Pius and his successors in two instances, the cities of Ionia in the East and the reconstruction of Carthage in the West; and considers the extent to which new buildings there promoted an imperial, rather than a local, ideology. Chapter 8 explores the characteristics of such ‘imperial architecture’ more generally. Local civic pride was a strong factor in the architecture of cities in the Roman East. Public buildings were a marriage of civic loyalty and personal desire for fame. Benefactors competed to advance their own architectural projects as of particular importance to a city in her rivalry with her neighbours. When Dio ‘Chrysostom’ Cocceianus paid for the construction of a stoa in Prusa at the beginning of the second century, he was attacked by others for ‘digging up the city’ and creating a desert. Later, when he planned to erect another public building for the city, opponents urged that he had brought down ‘monuments and sacred buildings’.

Right as John was trying to establish his new business, Pittsburgh found itself in need of a new aqueduct to carry the Pennsylvania Canal over the Allegheny River. John got to work immediately: designing, promoting, corralling, and influencing. While waiting to hear about the bridge contract, John wrote a long, revealing letter home to his father, in which he pondered the nature of life and death, along with issues of matter and the soul. John’s philosophyowed much to Hegel’s Weltgeist (“world spirit”) and Ralph Waldo Emerson’s ideas on nature and the soul. John was certainly a man of strict science, but he was also a bit of a spiritual mystic, inclined to the hard lines of the Enlightenment as well as the soft textures of Romanticism. The work on the Allegheny Aqueduct was extremely difficult and the effort was massive, but all was proceeding well until a fire broke out on the other side of town.