List of Roman dams and reservoirs
This is a list of Roman dams. Despite remarkable achievements of the Romans in the dam, which need not fear comparison with its activities in the aqueduct, bridge and road construction, this field has so far been relatively little explored.
The construction of dams was taken by the Romans in the early imperial period. The majority of the buildings found in the semi-arid fringes of the empire, especially in the North African and Near Eastern provinces as well as on the Iberian Peninsula. The high number of Spanish dams in the list can be partly explained from the intensive field research, which was operated in this country. From the Italian core area, however, only one ancient dam complex is known, the Emperor Nero ( 54-68 AD) built dams for recreational purposes of Subiaco, however, are of particular interest because of their unsurpassed until the late Middle Ages height.
The most common barriers were earth or stone dams and gravity dams of masonry. Their functions were quite different as in the days of the hydraulic societies of the Middle East and were about in irrigation, flood protection, the river diversion or retention are of fertile soil. Frequently dams were equal to more of these purposes.
The Roman dam lifted from its predecessors in particular by the " ability of the Romans to plan and organize the construction operations on a large scale " from. This allowed the construction of large reservoirs that could provide the connected cities in the dry period with drinking water - a common technique used in today concept, which had but rarely found to date application.
The invention of hydraulic mortar and particularly concrete decreased the water permeability of Roman dams. The new materials also created the possibility to build bigger barrages, such as the Lake of Homs, the possibly largest dam of antiquity, or the Harbaqa dam (see picture), both of which consist of a core of concrete.
Overall, laid Roman builder of dams in a high degree of innovativeness of the day. While locks until then only withstood the water pressure due to its own weight, recognized the Romans as the first, the stabilizing effect of arches and pillars in masonry bond. To market the imported new dam types were:
- Arch gravity dams
- Arch dams
- Pillar dams
- Multiple arch dams
Finally go the beginnings combined dam - bridge structures that were commonly found in the wake of Iran, on the forced labor of Roman prisoners of war back (see Band-e Kaisar ).
List
The dams are sorted according to their maximum height. All dimensions are in meters; at different values younger and more detailed investigations is given preference. For earth dams, the width refers to the masonry body.