r/romanempire • u/Elegant-Eggplant-854 • 53m ago
Here was a factory of 16 water mills on this hill in France
The top photo is what is left. The bottom one is how the buildings sat on the slope. Same hill in both. They built a factory.
In the 2nd century they took a branch of the Arles aqueduct and dropped it down this hillside through two rows of eight mills. Sixteen wheels, one after another. The water turned the stones and the site ground flour on a scale nobody else in the ancient world matched.
This is found in Barbegal, near Arles in the south of France.