karst geologies | water systems by dora p crouch
geology water antiquity
in my studies , i have examined entire water systems , from finding the water at a spring in the mountains , bringing it to the city , distributing it to houses , businesses and recreational structures , and carrying away used water in sewers . this whole interconnected pattern constitutes the water system . all the illustrations here are from my book , geology and settlement : greco - roman patterns . oxford university press , 2003
Diagram of climate changes over five thousand years, from 3000 BCE to 2000 CE, comparing the advance and retreat of European and North American glaciers, the rate of growth of bristlecone pines and the fluctuating levels of C14 in the atmosphere The trees and glaciers have matched phases, while C14 reflects solar radiation and hence climate warming A warm period coincided with the flourishing of the Roman Empire, 200 BCE-400 CE
Plate boundaries and motions in the eastern Mediterranean area (MacKenzie 1972) Plate edges in western Turkey and the Caucasus are shown only generally. Arrows show direction of motion, their lengths proportional to the relative velocity Double lines indicate extension across plate boundaries. A single heavy line indicates a transform fault. Crosshatching represents boundaries across which shortening is occurring Plates are numbered: 1 Eurasian 2 African 3 Iranian 4 South Caspian 5 Turkish 6 Aegean 7 Black Sea 8 Arabian. This simplified map suggests the complications of plate movements in the area.
Water and geology is my specialty; I’ve spent a lifetime researching Greek and Roman water systems, starting with my PhD in art history from UCLA, a study of Roman-era Palmyra in Syria. At the time, although there had been some studies of individual Roman city water systems, no one had looked much at Greek water systems. Between 1970 and 1985 I met Henning Fahlbusch at the Technical University of Lübeck, found the Frontinus Geschellschaft, a society for the study of water systems, and helped organise the Cura Aquarum which conducted field trips to the ancient cities of the Roman and Greek empires. Greeks and Romans ran their water delivery lines along the slopes of hills and through tunnels underground, depending on the terrain. Their technology was able to bore through existing rock formations, using them, for instance, at Syracuse in Sicily, where an important aqueduct is visible for part of its path
running diagonally along the inside edge of a cliff, carved into the stone. Today the aqueduct is broken, so no water runs in it, however, the object was to bring water into the settlement and to connect its outfalls with further sets of tunnels and pipes that carried away used, dirty water in a set of sewers set at a lower level, but that still flowed down hill by gravity and then poured into a river or the sea. Sometimes water system elements are still visible, such as the channels in the Athenian agora, but often they have been destroyed or misplaced such as at Ephesus in Turkey or Merida in Spain – urban centres where pipes have collapsed and simply been piled up next to the houses or stored in the extant public structures of the site, in the storerooms (former shops), for instance, of the lower agora at Ephesus.
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