Roman Aqueduct Ruins Mainz: Water Supply for Mogontiacum
Site at a Glance
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- Classical
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- Civilizations
- Roman
- Site type
- Infrastructure
- Remains
- Aqueduct
On this page6 sections
History
The Roman Aqueduct Ruins at Mainz in Germany are the surviving remains of a Roman water system built for Mogontiacum, the ancient name of Mainz, during the Flavian period in the late 1st century AD. Construction probably began around AD 70, or between AD 69 and 79, as the city’s formerly timber-and-earth double legionary fortress was rebuilt in stone after the political and military crises of AD 68–69. The aqueduct supplied the legionary camp, the civilian settlement beside it, and the growing population with water for bathhouses, fountains, and private and public baths.
Construction after the civil wars
The project formed part of the rebuilding undertaken during the reign of Vespasian, founder of the Flavian dynasty, which ruled the Roman Empire from AD 69 to 96. The earlier crises included the Batavian revolt, an uprising that brought military conflict and instability to the Rhine frontier in AD 69. Soldiers of the First Legion Adiutrix and the Fourteenth Legion Gemina took part in construction work at Mainz. Repeated brick stamps point to the Fourteenth Legion Gemina as the likely builder, while its period of stationing in Mainz places construction broadly between AD 69 and 92.
Water supply and later investigation
The aqueduct’s operating period is not known. Its traditional length of about 9 km comes chiefly from the 1771 account of Joseph Fuchs, a Benedictine historian of Roman Mainz. Fuchs identified the Königsborn near Finthen as the source and said that he had found a wooden spring structure there containing, among other material, bricks stamped by the Fourteenth Legion. The place-name Finthen derives from the Latin fontanetum, meaning an area of springs, which supports the association with a water source.
An underground aqueduct discovered near Königsborn in 1860 has not been conclusively connected with the surviving structure at a precise archaeological point. A nineteenth-century proposal that springs near Drais also supplied the system remains unconfirmed. A 2006 excavation at Bettzieg identified an alignment pointing toward Finthen, while the securely traced above-ground route had reached approximately 3.8 km by 2008.
In the nineteenth century, a local tradition connected the aqueduct with a supposed knightly family called the “Knights of Ageduch,” said to have used an aqueduct arch on its coat of arms. The historian Franz Joseph Bodmann later identified this story as a fabrication. The name was derived from medieval forms of local field names rather than from a genuine medieval family. The surviving remains became known as the Römersteine, or “Roman stones,” in the Zahlbach area near Bretzenheim.
Remains
Route and elevated crossing
The aqueduct carried water by gravity from the likely source area near present-day Finthen. Its route was mainly underground near the source and rose above ground farther along where changes in elevation required an elevated structure. The above-ground section began at the Bettzieg field south of Draisberghof and continued to a water-collecting reservoir near the present university hospital and Frauenklinik.
At Zahlbach, the aqueduct crossed the valley of the Wildgraben stream on a double-row arcade. The piers reached approximately 25 m in height, and this crossing is regarded as the highest Roman aqueduct structure north of the Alps. Additional pier remains have been exposed on the slope of the Zahlbach valley toward the university hospital and Kästrich. Further visible sections occur near the sports grounds of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and along Koblenzer Straße.
Römersteine and waterworks
The Römersteine include 69 piers constructed from opus caementicium, Roman concrete made from cementitious mortar and aggregate. The aqueduct’s water channel and structural piers used this material, while dressed stone formed the covering over the arches. A small number of the piers retain portions of their outer casing in situ, meaning in their original position.
Parts of the water-collecting basin survive on the grounds of the university hospitals. Together with the elevated sections and isolated piers along the documented route, these remains show how the Roman water supply moved from its spring area toward the military and civilian center of Mogontiacum.
