Oldest Roman aqueduct outside Italy is in Cartagena
Oldest Roman aqueduct outside Italy is in Cartagena
SPAIN'S oldest Roman aqueduct was in Cartagena (Murcia), pre-dating the country's most famous example in the central province of Segovia which attracts thousands of tourists every year.
Researchers at Murcia University have confirmed that the irrigation system created by an aqueduct and public springs close to the Naval city and the popular golf and spa tourist resorts is the most ancient in mainland Spain and Portugal, dating back to over 100 years BC.
Although it has long since crumbled into ruins, two inscriptions found near the site together with other literary and iconographic material already held in museums have proven that there was indeed a water-carrying bridge in the area and that it was the first to be built outside of Italy during the days of the powerful Roman Empire.
Other famous examples in Spain, besides the internationally-renowned one in Segovia, are in Córdoba in the south, Tarragona in the north-east and Mérida in the land-locked western region of Extremadura.
These were originally considered to be the oldest until the recent findings in Cartagena.
According to investigators, this discovery will allow historians to find out more about 'the role of Pompei and its legacy in Hispania', especially in the south-east of the mainland.
Their findings came from a hydro-geological study conducted jointly with Cartagena Polytechnic University to find out how the port city was supplied with water over the course of history, from the Miocene era to the present day.
The full report has been published in the German geological journal Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphic, which includes a reconstruction of various historical eras in the Cartagena area.
