Reinventing Concrete, the Ancient Roman Way
In June, the Italian Ministry of Culture announced the excavation of a new room, not yet open to the public, in the ruins of Pompeii. A few weeks later, a group of archaeologists gathered to marvel at it: walls covered with bright blue paint — an expensive pigment reserved for special rooms — and detailed frescoes of agricultural images remarkably well preserved after almost 2,000 years.
Admir Masic, a chemist at M.I.T., was more captivated by what appeared, to an unschooled guest, like an unremarkable pile of sandy dirt at the edge of the room. The material, light tan and granular, had been a critical component of the Roman Empire, he said: the precursor to concrete, a mainstay of Roman infrastructure, including the aqueducts that brought fresh water to cities like Pompeii.
“They managed to bring water to the city, and with water came hygiene,” Dr. Masic said. “That technological advance allowed them to, first of all, build Rome as it is, but also replicate this anywhere they would go.” He spread his arms as if circumscribing the entire Roman world.
