11/11/2017

4th Cistern

We created this simulation to help you understand how the ancient Greeks used to work. The Greek and Roman slaves placed wooden wedges into the cracks, similar to those called “cugnoli”: they soaked them in water, the wood then expanded, which caused the cracks to split and they removed the blocks. Afterwards, still deep in the underground using only three tools—a hammer, a chisel and a small hatchet called a smarra—they were fashioned into parallelepiped blocks. The larger ones were used for the walls of the city, and the smaller ones for the city’s buildings.