Who Invented Concrete?
Long before the time of Moses, mud and moist clay has been molded into bricks or placed between forms to build the walls of homes and fortifications.
In addition to security, these walls provided substantial insulation from the elements and were fire resistant. Eventually it was discovered that a moist coating of thin, white, burnt limestone protected the earthen surfaces from erosion.
In the western world, concrete was probably first created in Italy, some 200 years before the birth of Christ, when this type of lime coating was applied to walls made of volcanic, pozzolanic ash.
The Ancient Romans soon discovered that crushing the volcanic ash into a fine powder and mixing it with moist lime, not only made a thicker, more durable coating that could be submerged in water, but also produced a stone like product with incredible bonding properties.
While quarried stone and brick construction methods were practiced by the Greeks and Egyptian before them, Rome's development of concrete technology, along with the sophisticated application of the arch as a building form created the foundation for many of ancient world's greatest engineering achievements in:
Roads
Bridges
Aqueducts
Buildings
For more than six hundred years Roman concrete technology flourished until the empire collapsed in the fifth century A.D.
Sacked by wave after wave of northern barbarians, the manufacture and use of concrete was lost to the western world for the next 1400 years.
After more than fifteen centuries of fire, war, weathering, acts of God and urban renewal, the ancient Roman structures that have survived, provide an enduring testament to the genius of their engineering and to the strength and durability of concrete.
Here are two examples:
Roman Building I
Roman Building II
