Page - 164 - in The Power of Urban Water - Studies in premodern urbanism

Fig. 3:Syracuse, ancient catchments of theGalermi aqueduct. 164 SophieBouffier TheGalermiAqueduct, testimonyof agigantic programme The best-knownaqueduct today is theGalermi, first because it has survived centuries tomeet the different needs of the Syracusanpopulation: drinkingwater supplier in ancient times, hy- dropower for flourmills inmodern times, and for apower plant in the 20th century, and today an instrument for irrigation (Fig.4).38 It is inanexceptional stateofpreservation.Furthermore, our teamhas conducted excavations, topographic, architectural, photogrammetric and 3D sur- veys since 2012 there.39 To identify the ancient parts,we focused our attention on the first few kilometres of the aqueduct, dug into the limestone of theHyblaeanMountains, because these are the best preserved sections of the development. On the plain, frequent landslides have forced successive users of the aqueduct to rework the pipeline, to strengthen or evenmove it, sometimes by a fewmetres. The last part of the aqueduct, near the theatre, was diverted to feed theNymphaeumtheatre in the 19th and20thcenturies. Its original layout and its technical configurationareno longer known today. 38 Besset –Bouffier 2017; Bouffier –Wateau forthcoming. 39 Bouffier 2018;Bouffier et al. 2018;Bouffier et al. 2019.