The second century CE Roman watermills of Barbegal Unraveling the enigma of one of the oldest industrial complexes
Carbonate deposits provide insights into the operation of the earliest industrial utilization of hydropower by an ancient society.
Barbegal carbonate imprints give a voice to the first industrial complex of Europe
International audience; The watermill complex of Barbegal is one of the first industrial complexes in the world, and one of the largest such installations known from antiquity. It has been studied through excavations and what is known about the complex, its history and purpose, is based on the remaining stonework of mills and water installations, since no traces of the woodwork or machinery of the mills have been preserved. The archaeological museum in Arles, however, stores 142 pieces of carbonate that formed on the woodwork of the mills. We studied this material by analysis of the shape of the fragments and of stable isotopes and crystallographic fabric of selected carbonate samples. This…