Storms expose Roman and Baroque remains on Cádiz beach

Crowds were seen gathered on La Cortadura beach in Cádiz, which attracted the attention of local heritage experts who have had to arrange for constant police patrols in the area to prevent pillaging.

Two walls of around two metres (6'6”) in height and 80 centimetres (2'8”) wide had emerged after torrential rain washed away the sand, and which used to run alongside a road built in the 16^th century out of stones.

This ancient highway has not been in use since the devastating tsunami of 1755, caused by a massive earthquake in Lisbon, which battered the provinces of Cádiz and Huelva and cost 1,240 lives.

Just a few steps away, another seven pieces of rock that the rain has washed the sand from have been found, and are believed to have been part of the Roman aqueduct built in the first century, when Cádiz was known by its Latin name, Gades.

Two are still joined up with the original mortar used, believed to be nothing short of an historical miracle.

Local experts had known about the Baroque highway and the Roman aqueduct for some time, but had never found any physical evidence of it.

They say the aqueduct would have been at least 75 kilometres long and supplied water to residents from the Tempul natural spring in what is now the town of San José del Valle.

Fragments had been discovered in the past, although nowhere near to the extent of those found after the storms, and were put on display in the Plaza Asdrúbal in Cádiz.

Historians say the aqueduct was one of the most spectacular achievements in Roman engineering in the country that was then known as Hispania.

Although evidence has not yet been found to support their theories, archaeologists suspect a Roman road may have run beneath the much later and now-uncovered walled road, or possibly alongside it, stretching out into the sea and used at a time when the shoreline was much farther out.

The investigating team, from the Heritage Research and Dissemination Association (ADIP) in Cádiz, supplied the above photograph.