Le pont du Gard | Roman engineering skills


	An exceptional Aqueduct

	Roman engineering skills

	Signs of the times

	Technicals aspects

Over twenty centuries have passed since the construction of what is one of the best known civil engineering feats in the world.

The structure is a symbol of the power of the Roman civilisation. It has traversed the ages
standing as a sort of eternal totem through successive wars, industrial revolutions or climatic problems without ever seeming to be affected.

» Three rows of arches

A real marvel for technicians and scientists and a masterpiece admired by artists and visitors from all over the world.


	Culminating at a height of 49 metres, the Pont du Gard is the major structure along the Nîmes aqueduct. It is the highest aqueduct bridge ever built by the Romans and is remarkably well conserved. It has 3 rows of arches: 6 on the bottom row, 11 on the second level and 47 on the top row.


	It stands out from the other aqueduct bridges through its imposing dimensions and the height and width of its arches: the biggest is 24.52 metres.


	» Flood resistant The river level piles of the bridge are very wide and have a cut-water prow formation providing excellent resistance to the occasional high flood waters of the Gardon.

» Local materials

The bridge was built from blocks of local stone (light yellow limestone that is easy to cut)
from the Estel quarry, 500m upstream of the monument on the left bank of the Gardon.

» A technical feat

Construction of the Pont du Gard was the major engineering element of the aqueduct and for
three to five years, up to a thousand men would have been working on it all the time.

The volume of stone required to make the bridge has been estimated at 21,000 cubic metres representing a total weight of some 50,400 tonnes!

The bridge is therefore a brilliant assembly of very large stones that hold together without mortar.

» A great deal of work

The monument still bears traces of the rational organisation of the work: numbering of stones, support points for scaffolding and lifting devices.

» An anonymous architect

There is no reference to the name of the architect who designed the monument. The only inscription is in Latin "mens totum corium" on one of the bottom piles but this means that the entire structure has been measured.