Rome required 500 miles of canals to achieve its objective. Its figures are overwhelming: an extension that exceeds 1,200 acres, reaching nearly two miles in width. Las Médulas became the largest open pit gold mine excavated in the entirety of the Roman Empire’s history. Subsequently, they organized the construction of a hydraulic network, with numerous canals and reservoirs.Ī team made up of 20 individuals from public and private institutes – co-directed by Javier Sánchez-Palencia and Almudena Orejas, of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) – has recently established the location of the hydraulic structures built by the Romans in Las Médulas, a mountainous zone in the province of León. The engineers of Rome realized that water was essential to perform this vast mineral extraction. Still, getting the metal out of the mountains and valleys was easier said than done. The final conquest and pacification of all of Hispania – the Roman name for the Iberian Peninsula – following the Cantabrian-Asturian wars (29 to 19 BC) gave the Empire access to abundant gold deposits throughout the northwest of modern Spain. He also performed the very difficult task of stabilizing its monetary system.ĭuring his reign, gold and silver coins came to have a standard value. Emperor Caesar Augustus – also known as Octavian – didn’t simply found the Roman Empire.
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