Meggie Macdonald

Following my brief post regarding film footage from MEON HDTV Productions about the recent discovery of the source of Trajan’s Aqueduct, I was surprised and very pleased to be contacted by Director Ted O’Neill who, together with Producer Michael O’Neill, Professor Lorenzo Quilici and Professor Rabun Taylor, comprised the team that announced this stunning find.

Ted O’Neill was kind enough to forward the press release issued from Rome in January 2010, an excerpt of which is found below:

“An ancient water source in Etruscan times, the web of springs was encapsulated by the Roman engineers in a vaulted, three-chambered semicircular ‘nymphaeum’, which served as a springhouse and probably contained the statue of a Roman river god or nymph. The ancient water source was commemorated by a sestertius coin minted by the Emperor Trajan when he inaugurated his aqueduct and his public baths in the centre of Rome, 1900 years ago.

For more than a thousand years, Trajan’s sacred water source was hidden under a Christian Church, now ruined and dismantled.  The ancient aqueduct still emerges from under the church’s meagre remains.  The water collection chamber of the Caput Aquae (headwaters) and 125 metres of the Roman Aqueduct gallery are still in pristine condition as compared with many crumbling ruins in the centre of Rome.

Ancient evidence and Papal records confirm that this shrine is almost certainly the primary water source of Trajan’s aqueduct:  the vaulted ceilings are all richly decorated with expensive Egyptian blue pigment, which strongly suggests that the great Emperor Trajan, proclaimed Optimus Princeps, almost certainly was here personally for his aqueduct’s inauguration.

Until recently, this water source was considered by some to be a local, regional aqueduct of eighteenth-century origin.

However, a descent below the chapel with powerful lights for  filming of the underground galleries revealed that the brickwork and waterproof hydraulic cement lining the tunnels is absolutely characteristic of the Trajanic age.” (Provincia di Roma:  Commune di Bracchiano, Commune di Manziana, and MEON HDTV Productions, 2010).

This discovery has raised many new questions and avenues for further exploration about the history of this massive construction effort from the early second century AD/CE.  Why was a Christian Church built over the water source and nymphaeum?  Was it purely because the foundations already in place cut down on construction costs?  Or is there any evidence that local knowledge of a clean water source prompted an association with religious cleansing centuries later? 

What can be learned about the unique architectural techniques utilized in the construction of this aqueduct?  Were Trajan’s workers the most advanced engineers the Roman world had ever seen?  What information can be drawn from the Aqua Paola, the seventeenth-century restoration by Pope Paul V, about the original aqueduct? 

What new literary references can be identified to support our knowledge of this discovery? 

What geological information is available on the site about the nature of the springs that supplied Rome with fresh water? 

Can the producers’ theory that the famous Trajanic coin represents the nymphaeum rather than the fountain on the Janiculum Hill be proved beyond question, and reflect a poetic conclusion to this wonderful discovery?

It is hard to imagine that this archaeological project is still in its early stages – the aqueduct source has been identified but the long-term research on engineering and construction methods, the history of the site and its socio-cultural significance have yet to be explored, published and debated.  To the project and its restoration and conservation efforts, I say happy hunting!