Ancient Roman Wooden Water Pipe Made From Hollow Tree Trunks Unearthed Beneath a Street in Belgium
Archaeologists say the muddy soil in the area preserved the artifact, which likely dates to between the second and third centuries C.E.
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A Roman water pipe made of fragments of hollow tree trunks has been unearthed in Belgium. Found near what may be a water pumping system, the pipe likely dates to between the second and third centuries C.E.
Researchers discovered the pipe in the city of Leuven, which is located some 15 miles east of Brussels, during an archaeological survey conducted ahead of construction for a university residence building, according to a statement from the Leuven government.
The pipe was about 13 feet underground, and it was made of several tree trunk sections, each measuring about five feet long, as the Brussels Times reports. In total, the pipe ran between roughly 65 and 100 feet long. Due to the close proximity of the Dijle river, the soil was wet and muddy, leaving the pipe in exceptionally well-preserved condition.
“We are in a valley, basically a swamp,” Dirk Vansina, a Leuven city councillor, tells the Belga News Agency. “Because the wood was cut off from oxygen, it remained intact.”
During the first century B.C.E., Julius Caesar conquered large swaths of Europe, including parts of modern-day Belgium. These lands became part of the Roman region of Gaul. Many ancient Roman artifacts have been unearthed in Belgium in recent years, including a dodecahedron fragment and a cremation cemetery containing a skeleton assembled from the bones of eight people.
Leuven may have been a Roman “diverticulum,” a settlement along a military road that connected modern-day France and Germany, according to the statement. The pipe may have supplied that settlement with water.
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The ancient Romans are remembered for their complex plumbing systems. They built large elevated aqueducts as well as subterranean channels to transport water. Earlier this year, researchers announced the discovery of a brick underground aqueduct in Slovakia.
As Vansina says in the statement, the recently found pipe is a unique discovery. Traces of ancient wooden pipes have been found at other Roman sites—but in most cases, the wooden artifacts themselves have rotted away.
“The fact that we found a water pipe indicates that the settlement must have enjoyed a certain degree of prosperity,” Ben Van Genechten, a project leader at the archaeology company BAAC Flanders, tells the Brussels Times.
Per the statement, the wooden pipe will shed new light on the Romans’ presence in Leuven. The artifact is now headed to a conservation laboratory for further analysis.
Researchers plan to determine how old the timber was when it was cut via dendrochronology, the study of tree rings. They may then freeze-dry the pipe to ensure its preservation. In the future, the artifact could go on public display.
“We cannot yet fully comprehend what life would have been like here in earlier periods,” Van Genechten tells the Brussels Times. “It is very interesting to be able to piece together the puzzle bit by bit.”
