This is a list of Roman canals.

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

canals were typically multi-purpose structures, intended for

irrigation Irrigation (also referred to as watering of plants) is the practice of applying controlled amounts of water to land to help grow crops, landscape plants, and lawns. Irrigation has been a key aspect of agriculture for over 5,000 years and has bee ...

drainage Drainage is the natural or artificial removal of a surface's water and sub-surface water from an area with excess water. The internal drainage of most agricultural soils can prevent severe waterlogging (anaerobic conditions that harm root gro ...

land reclamation Land reclamation, often known as reclamation, and also known as land fill (not to be confused with a waste landfill), is the process of creating new Terrestrial ecoregion, land from oceans, list of seas, seas, Stream bed, riverbeds or lake ...

flood control Flood management or flood control are methods used to reduce or prevent the detrimental effects of flood waters. Flooding can be caused by a mix of both natural processes, such as extreme weather upstream, and human changes to waterbodies and ru ...

and

navigation Navigation is a field of study that focuses on the process of monitoring and controlling the motion, movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another.Bowditch, 2003:799. The field of navigation includes four general categories: land navig ...

where feasible. This list focuses on the larger canals, particularly navigational canals, as recorded by ancient geographers and still traceable by

modern archaeology Modern archaeology is the discipline of archaeology which contributes to excavations. Johann Joachim Winckelmann was one of the founders of scientific archaeology and first applied the categories of style on a large, systematic basis to the ...

. Channels which served the needs of urban

water supply Water supply is the provision of water by public utilities, commercial organisations, community endeavors or by individuals, usually via a system of pumps and pipes. Public water supply systems are crucial to properly functioning societies. Th ...

are covered at the

List of aqueducts in the Roman Empire This is a list of aqueducts in the Roman Empire. For a more complete list of known and possible Roman aqueduct The Romans constructed aqueducts throughout their Republic and later Empire, to bring water from outside sources into cities a ...

. Greek engineers were the first to use

canal locks A lock is a device used for raising and lowering boats, ships and other watercraft between stretches of water of different levels on river and canal waterways. The distinguishing feature of a lock is a chamber in a permanently fixed position i ...

, by which they regulated the water flow in the Ancient Suez Canal as early as the 3rd century BC.Froriep 1986, p. 46 The Romans under

Trajan Trajan ( ; born Marcus Ulpius Traianus, 18 September 53) was a Roman emperor from AD 98 to 117, remembered as the second of the Five Good Emperors of the Nerva–Antonine dynasty. He was a philanthropic ruler and a successful soldier ...

too secured the entrance to the

Red Sea The Red Sea is a sea inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. Its connection to the ocean is in the south, through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden. To its north lie the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and th ...

with sluice gates, while they extended the canal south to the height of modern

Cairo Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...

in order to improve its water inflow. The existence of ancient

pound lock A lock is a device used for raising and lowering boats, ships and other watercraft between stretches of water of different levels on river and canal waterways. The distinguishing feature of a lock is a chamber in a permanently fixed position i ...

s to bridge height gaps has been proposed by a number of authors, but in the absence of clear archaeological evidence the question seems to be permanently undecided.Wikander 2000, p. 326

Canals

By chronological order:

Italy

Gaul

Germania

Britain

Egypt

Moesia

Projected canals

In the following, Roman canal projects which were never completed for various reasons are listed.

References

Sources

*Froriep, Siegfried (1986): "Ein Wasserweg in Bithynien. Bemühungen der Römer, Byzantiner und Osmanen", ''Antike Welt'', 2nd Special Edition, pp. 39–50 *Grewe, Klaus (2008): "Tunnels and Canals", in: Oleson, John Peter (ed.): ''The Oxford Handbook of Engineering and Technology in the Classical World'', Oxford University Press, pp. 319–336, *Moore, Frank Gardner (1950): "Three Canal Projects, Roman and Byzantine", ''

American Journal of Archaeology The ''American Journal of Archaeology'' (AJA), the peer-reviewed journal of the Archaeological Institute of America, has been published since 1897 (continuing the ''American Journal of Archaeology and of the History of the Fine Arts'' founded by t ...

'', Vol. 54, No. 2, pp. 97–111 *Schörner, Hadwiga (2000): "Künstliche Schiffahrtskanäle in der Antike. Der sogenannte antike Suez-Kanal", ''Skyllis'', Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 28–43 *Serban, Marko (2009): "Trajan’s Bridge over the Danube", ''

The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology The Nautical Archaeology Society (NAS) is a charity registered in England and WalesCharity Commission
...

'', Vol. 38, No. 2, pp. 331–342 *Tudor, D. (1974): ''Les ponts romains du Bas-Danube'', Bibliotheca Historica Romaniae Études, Vol. 51, Bucharest: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, pp. 47–134 *White, K. D. (1984): ''Greek and Roman Technology'', London: Thames and Hudson, pp. 110–112; 227–229, table 6 *Wikander, Charlotte (2000): "Canals", in Wikander, Örjan (ed.): ''Handbook of Ancient Water Technology'', Technology and Change in History, Vol. 2, Leiden: Brill, pp. 321–330,

External links

*Livius.org
''Fossa Drusiana''
*Livius.org

*Telegraph.co.uk

{{Ancient Roman architecture lists

Canals Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface flow u ...