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https://theconversation.com/the-roman-empire-built-300-000-kilometres-of-roads-new-study-269186>
"At its height, the Roman empire covered some 5 million square kilometres and
was home to around 60 million people. This vast territory and huge population
were held together via a network of long-distance roads connecting places
hundreds and even thousands of kilometres apart.
Compared with a modern road, a Roman road was in many ways over-engineered.
Layers of material often extended a metre or two into the ground beneath the
surface, and in Italy roads were paved with volcanic rock or limestone.
Roads were also furnished with milestones bearing distance measurements. These
would help calculate how long a journey might take or the time for a letter to
reach a person elsewhere.
Thanks to these long-lasting archaeological remnants, as well as written
records, we can build a picture of what the road network looked like thousands
of years ago.
A new, comprehensive map and digital dataset published by a team of researchers
led by Tom Brughmans at Aarhus University in Denmark shows almost 300,000
kilometres of roads spanning an area of close to 4 million square kilometres."
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
