3 ms·
(Caveat: I'm not truly an expert on Roman concrete, although I love it -- the Pantheon being my favourite building in the whole if human history.) My understan
by nkoren 4y ago
(Caveat: I'm not truly an expert on Roman concrete, although I love it -- the Pantheon being my favourite building in the whole if human history.)
My understanding is that the use of Roman concrete was very highly centralised in and around Rome, and tailed off dramatically towards the outer reaches of the Empire. Indeed I've seen this cited as the key factor in the technology going extinct -- basically, it was very locally endemic.
In any case, I'm unaware of any Roman concrete structures having been found in Britain, so this statement may indeed be true.
- iampivot 4y agoWasn't this also because they needed certain volcanic ashes for their concrete, which would be hard to find elsewhere?
- chucksta 4y agoYes, seawater and ash https://unews.utah.edu/roman-concrete/ https://unews.utah.edu/roman-concrete/
- jessriedel 4y agoIt doesn’t have to be Roman concrete. English concretes made with, e.g., Portland cement, predates Sway tower by a hundred years. Obviously, the only version of this claim that could be true is that Sway Tower was the first building in England built exclusively of unreinforced concrete. (There were uncountable buildings built by using unreinforced concrete and stone, e.g., the third Eddystone Lighthouse completed in 1759.) But I’d still find it very surprising that people built structures in England from reinforced concrete for decades without anyone trying to do it without the reinforcement. (“The first home built using reinforced concrete was a servant’s cottage constructed in England by William B. Wilkinson in 1854.”)