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Ancient concrete works - by Amelia Carolina Sparavigna

Redazione Archaeogate, 27-10-2011   - Pag. 1 di 6 »  stampa questa pagina

Sommario

  1. Introduction
  2. The Roman cement
  3. Formaceos walls
  4. The Mycenaean concrete
  5. Conclusion
  6. References

Introduction

On April 12, 2011, in concurrence with an exhibition in the Oxford's Ashmolean Museum of some ancient treasures of Greece, the BBC announced that Macedonians created cement three centuries before the Romans [1]. Unearthing some tombs of a royal complex belonging to Alexander the Great and his father Philip, at Vergina, archaeologists determined that Macedonians were "not only great warriors but revolutionary builders as well", since they used concrete before the Romans. This information is quite interesting because shows the location of an early use of concrete. Unfortunately, if we want to shed light on the origin of the material, this simple comparison between Macedonian and Roman concretes is a little bit misleading. Moreover, it is raising another question: were Macedonians the first people using concrete? The answer is negative. Concrete was older even than Alexander the Great. Let me show you how we can deduce this fact from some Latin essays and their English translations and from the reports of Schliemann's excavations of Mycenaean archaeological sites.

Amelia Carolina Sparavigna
Dipartimento di Fisica
Politecnico di Torino

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Cliccare sull'immagine per l'ingrandimento

Fig.1: Maps of Tiryns from [13]
Fig.1: Maps of Tiryns from [13]

Fig.2: Google Earth view of Tiryns.
Fig.2: Google Earth view of Tiryns.

Fig.3: A tunnel in the cyclopean walls of Tiryns [13]
Fig.3: A tunnel in the cyclopean walls of Tiryns [13]

Fig.4: Decorations on the walls of the palace of Tiryns [13]
Fig.4: Decorations on the walls of the palace of Tiryns [13]