Michael O'Neill and Edward O'Neill
LOST AQUEDUCT AND BEAUTIFUL NYMPHAEUM REDISCOVERED NEAR ROME ON 1900TH ANIVERSARY AFTER INAUGURATION
ROME, ITALY, JANUARY 28TH 2010: The primary source of the Emperor Trajan’s Aqueduct, the Aqua Traiana, has been identified north of Rome by British HD documentary team Michael and Edward O’Neill on the 1900th anniversary of the aqueduct’s inauguration. The significance of the site will be revealed at a press conference in Hotel Quirinale, via Nazionale 7, Rome, on Thursday, January 28th at 15:00.
On 24th June, precisely one thousand nine hundred years after the inauguration, worldwide aqueduct authority Prof. Lorenzo Quilici
[1] visited the newly discovered springhouse-shrine and its labyrinth of underground water galleries. “È TUTTO ROMANO!” – it’s ALL ROMAN! – he immediately exclaimed.
[1] visited the newly discovered springhouse-shrine and its labyrinth of underground water galleries. “È TUTTO ROMANO!” – it’s ALL ROMAN! – he immediately exclaimed.
Documentary filmmakers Michael and Edward O’Neill discovered the site in extraordinary and adventurous circumstances, and are now raising money to film the ongoing preservation, excavation, documentation and opening to the public.
An ancient water source in Etruscan times, the web of springs was encapsulated by the Roman engineers in a vaulted, three-chambered semicircular ‘nymphaeum’, which served as a springhouse and probably contained the statue of a Roman river god or nymph. The ancient water source was commemorated by a sestertius coin minted by the Emperor Trajan when he inaugurated his aqueduct and his public baths in the centre of Rome, 1900 years ago.
For perhaps a thousand years or more, Trajan’s sacred water source was hidden under a Christian Church, now ruined and dismantled. The ancient aqueduct still emerges from under the church’s meagre remains. The water collection chamber of the Caput Aquae (headwaters) and 125 metres of the Roman Aqueduct gallery are still in pristine condition as compared with many crumbling ruins in the centre of Rome. The entire area is rich in springs and while many other smaller springs were probably also tapped to augment the Traiana, this was without a doubt the primary spring.
Ancient evidence and Papal records confirm that this shrine is almost certainly the primary water source of Trajan’s aqueduct: The vaulted ceilings are all richly decorated with expensive Egyptian blue pigment, which strongly suggests that the great Emperor Trajan, proclaimed Optimus Princeps, almost certainly was here personally for his aqueduct’s inauguration.
Until recently, this water source was considered by some to be a local, regional aqueduct of eighteenth-century origin. However, a descent below the chapel with powerful lights for filming of the underground galleries revealed that the brickwork and waterproof hydraulic cement lining the tunnels is absolutely characteristic of the Trajanic age.
Whilst filming the ancient roman aqueducts in high definition, Michael O’Neill, Producer with MEON HDTV Productions, has descended below the chapel to explore into the stygian darkness of the ancient grottos and muddy tunnel, lined with classic Roman opus reticulatum brickwork.
“We are documenting a crumbling treasure,” he said. “The vaulted Roman concrete roofs with small central oculus openings, thought originally to admit light like the Pantheon, are incredibly strong, but this unique Roman structure is being destroyed by neglect, and by aggressive fig tree roots.
Ted and Mike have invited two American scholars, Katherine Rinne (Institute of Advanced Technology in the Humanities, University of Virginia) and Rabun Taylor (University of Texas at Austin), to investigate the site further and to seek resources to undertake its survey, excavation, and publication.
Katherine Rinne, an expert on the hydraulic history of Rome in the Renaissance and Baroque periods and the Project Director for "Aquae Urbis Romae: the Waters of the City of Rome," an online resource for the study of Rome's water history over 3000 years, is drawn to the many extraordinary features of this site dating from the ancient, medieval and the early modern periods. "When Mike and Ted first took me to the site I was quite literally blown away. There has been some confusion about the actual source of the Traiana and its relation to the later aqueduct, the Acqua Paola, built by Paul V between 1607 and 1612. Furthermore, we know that the Traiana continued to serve the Vatican until the tenth century. Here we see evidence of the arc of history over 2000 years". The spring was still producing abundant water until quite recently and was used in the sixteenth century to serve as a source of water for the mills of the Orsini Dukes in Bracciano. It is clear that this spring probably was not used for the Acqua Paola, but that some of the remaining Traiana source springs nearby were.
Rabun Taylor wrote his dissertation on the ancient aqueducts of the city of Rome and has published widely on the architecture and hydraulics of the city. He traced the course of the Aqua Traiana within the city, from its point of entry high on the Janiculum Hill to its crossing of the Tiber River near the modern Ponte Sublicio. “This is a discovery of almost unprecedented importance in the long history of aqueduct studies,” he said. “For all we know about the ancient city’s water supply—and we know quite a lot—it has to be understood that not a single architecturally defined spring source of any of ancient Rome’s eleven aqueducts has ever been discovered. And then Ted and Mike came along, put their amazing research and archival skills to work, and turned up one of the most spectacular—and pristine—Roman aqueduct sources in existence anywhere. The great aqueduct hunters of the twentieth century got within a couple of hundred meters of it, but never saw it.
“Now we’ve got a new point of reference with which to study the aqueduct as a whole. Today, the aqueduct is virtually invisible at ground level. But believe me—it was a major feature of the city’s landscape in antiquity. For example, very few people realize that it crossed the Tiber River between Trastevere and the Aventine Hill on an enormous arcade.
The ruins of that arcade are visible on the famous map that Nolli published in the eighteenth century. It’s the only bridge in the ancient city that didn’t accommodate traffic of any kind, and for sheer scale it dwarfed every other bridge on the river.”
The ruins of that arcade are visible on the famous map that Nolli published in the eighteenth century. It’s the only bridge in the ancient city that didn’t accommodate traffic of any kind, and for sheer scale it dwarfed every other bridge on the river.”
Perhaps the important feature of this structure is the engineering of the water captivation chambers and galleries. “It’s like a gigantic upside-down coffee percolator built in stone,” said Mike. “This is a genre of Roman hydraulic engineering that has never been seen before. It is of unparalleled importance.”
