During excavations in the ancient city of Artashat, the ruins of which are located in the territory of modern-day Armenia, archaeologists discovered traces of the ancient easternmost Roman aqueduct built in the beginning of the 2nd century, that is, in the period when the Roman Empire was thriving, TASS writes, citing the results of the study published in Archäologischer Anzeiger.
“Our discovered item shows how much effort the Romans put in to build the infrastructures of the future capital of the new state of the Roman Empire. Construction didn’t end since Emperor Adrianos retreated from Armenia after the death of Trajan in 117,” one of the authors of the study, researcher of the University of Munster Thorben Schreiber says.
In the first two centuries of our era, the Roman Empire and the Parthian Kingdom battled for dominance in the territories of Armenia, Turkey, Georgia and several other countries. Roma tried to seize Great Hayk several times, but, at the same time, the kings of the Arshakunis officially maintained their independence. The situation changed in 114 when Emperor Trajan’s troops seized almost the whole territory of the Armenian kingdom, after which the territory turned into one of the several states of the empire.
Schreiber and his partners found the traces of this process during excavations in the vicinity of the modern-day Armenian city of Artashat. In the past, it was the capital of Great Hayk and one of the largest centers for trade and the military.
To find the possible boundaries of the ancient city, scientists used the geomagnetic observations made in air, and it turned out that there are several hand-made objects hidden in the Ararat Valley that are at an equal distance from each other and are at a distance of 400 meters from each other.
Scientists inquired about this and explored a few of these objects. It turned out that they are the concrete foundations of the arches of a Roman aqueduct that was not fully built.
The radio-carbon analysis of the samples of soil showed that construction was launched in the final years of the dominance of Trajan. If the aqueduct was complete, it would be 30 kilometers long, dividing Artashat from the nearby large fountain.
