1The search for water, even under our latitudes, has always set a major challenge. Archaeology can reveal the conditions under which it was harnessed, transported, conserved or used in agriculture. Research has highlighted orthodox methods but also ad hoc solutions stemming from experience and observation which have enabled humans to adapt to the geological and climatic reality of their environment.

2People have constantly sought water, necessary for their survival and their need for its hydraulic properties, in order to settle, be it next to rivers, streams, lakes or springs. When other requirements – geological, defensive, economic or political – have led them to establish themselves in areas poor in water, they have devised ingenious ways of storing it in situ, in (sometimes very deep) wells, ponds, cisterns or aljibes. Many other solutions, which make the best of the local conditions, have been found: thus in the Late Neolithic in the garigue (scrubland) around Montpellier near Fontbouiss-type settlements, large containers were placed under the stalactites present in the sinkholes (avens) to collect water that was trickling down from them. Elsewhere and more recently, people have found ways of making water come to them. The Romans have thus multiplied the uses they could make of water, which in turn has increased the need for it… The Roman period witnessed great advances in hydraulics: everybody knows the Pont du Gard, the iconic canal bridge of the Nîmes aqueduct; but let us not forget that the towns of Roman Gaul, north and south, all had aqueducts. The best informed will also recall the remarkable mill installations at Barbegal near Arles, fed by an aqueduct additional to the town’s aqueduct, which tapped a spring in the Alpilles (discovered during an excavation in advance of development) and drove an extraordinary series of mill wheels with parallel paddles, set on a descending incline. Water was then of such strategic importance that it depended on public authorities, as attested by the inscription “RPBV”, branded onto wooden pipes dated to the years AD 158–162 discovered in Bordeaux, and meaning Res Publica Biturigum Viviscorum. It is worth noting that different sources of water were often exploited conjointly: aqueduct, cisterns, wells and sometimes springs, as the Romans had a very clear idea about degrees of potability and to what uses the different qualities of water could be put.

3Of course, the relentless quest for water continued into the Middle Ages. Though we barely have any traces of large hydraulic works in the Early Middle Ages, when ponds and wells are found close to settlements, later on a number of hilltop castles acquired ingenious cisterns designed to collect, store and purify water. The question of the water supply to the expanding towns, as much for consumption as for public baths, mills or other uses, is also well worth pursuing. Equally interesting are the abbeys, where water was managed on two counts: to ensure their supply, but also to drain it away from damp or even marshy places. As for more recent periods, there are still in Marseille, near the Porte d’Aix, a few arches of the so-called “Huveaune aqueduct” preserved: it supplied the town with water during the 17^th century. Other systems, also put in place during the modern era, show how efficient the measures taken to supply abbeys, estates and farms, proved to have been. Two examples among others will suffice: at the Carthusian monastery of La Verne in the Massif des Maures water was channelled from its spring to the monastery in fired clay pipes within underground vaulted galleries that were easy to access for maintenance; at the Jesuit house of Loyola in French Guyana water from the spring above it was brought along (probably wooden) pipes, held in position by round tiles set into a dwarf-wall built on the slope and designed to smooth out the contours.

4The examples and studies in this issue of Archéopages will, it is hoped, encourage a greater awareness of the relationship between people and water, at once a source of life, hygiene, comfort and energy. Our thirst for knowledge should be as insatiable as our thirst for water.

View towards the south of a section of the ancient aqueduct discovered at the Fontaine de l’Étuvée site, near Orléans.

Agrandir Original (jpeg, 2,4M)

Particularly interesting due to the flaws in its construction (the masonry is significantly altered by the flow of runoff water). Responsible of operation: F. Verneau, Inrap.

Photo: M. Noël, Inrap.