4 ms·

What always jars me the most is how modern ancient Roman taps and valves look.

• kibwen 2y ago
  Alternatively, you can consider how ancient our modern taps and valves look, and not in a bad way. Sometimes engineering problems get solved once and don't have a pressing need to be revisited.
  • potato3732842 2y ago
    Exactly. You can see this in all sorts of things. Sure an clean sheet design of a adjustable wrench or semi trailer coupling generic roller chain or whatever other 100yo item might net a few % improvement in some areas by no longer having to design to the manufacturing tech and material costs of 100 years ago but often times the ecosystem that standardization enables is worth more than a couple percent of improvement somewhere.
• araes 2y ago
  Came here to post almost the same. Always have this impression from modern media that Roman civilization was thatch roofs and aqueducts with maybe a hole in the wall that poured water out or a well you went to the local square. May have been that way for the poor, or the less status enabled, like many commenters have noticed. Yet it's still a dissonance that such high quality piping, boiler rooms, insulated engineered waterworks, and other similar ideas were available. Even if in limited quantities.