Episode Five of The Dirt on [Carbon] Dating: Volubilis

The podcast episode discusses the history and significance of the Roman city of Louisville, located in Morocco. The city was well-preserved and served as a center for commerce and oil cultivation. It displayed Roman dominance through its architecture and material goods. The city's prosperity was sustained through the cultivation of olives, which provided various products and served as a valuable trade asset. Over time, the city was abandoned and became a source of construction materials for neighboring sites. The ruins that remain showcase the city's mosaics, bronze statues, and other artifacts. The city's design and water management systems were innovative for their time and adapted to the climate. The cultivation techniques used in Louisville have remained unchanged for thousands of years and continue to contribute to Morocco's agricultural economy. The podcast also highlights the importance of sustainable practices in the face of global challenges like climate change. Hello, I'm Kylie. I'm Ambrose. And I'm Anthony. In this episode of our podcast, The Dirt on Carbon Dating, we're going to dive into the history of a particularly interesting but often forgotten UNESCO World Heritage Site, a Berber Roman city that remains remarkably youthful for its age. The city of Louisville was established in the 3rd century BC and is located in Morocco in northern Africa. The city is considered the most well-preserved Roman settlement in the outer regions of Roman expansion. The location served primarily for the purpose of commerce and oil cultivation. In addition, the city displays the height of the Roman empire in terms of influence and technology. Nearly 150 press locations were found in the The layout of the city, which connects these features at the center of the road, where the Tengiz Gate to the northeast and the Arc of Caracalla to the west, face each other further towards the arch. From the direct east, the stone-covered aqueduct brought water from the springs beyond the hills, between the House of Daenerys, which follows the main road, and in front of the House of Mimas to provide bathhouses and several central fountains with running water. The technology of this municipium served to display Roman dominance, and the city's material goods were both locally sourced and imported. Finer quality materials, such as the various colors of tiling for the mosaics, originated from the heart of the Roman empire and most of Italy. The city's luxury goods came at the cost of the local crop, olives. Refined olive oil was filled in amphoras and shipped to many parts of the Mediterranean and the outermost regions of the empire, making the city a valuable asset of trade. Olives were a sustainable resource to the Romans. Olives were pressed and separated into different quality oils involved with food, skin care, medicine, and for land fuel. Not only were the olives essential for commercial purposes, but the leftover pits and pulp were dried and used as fuel to heat the bathhouses and fed to cattle. This efficient and multi-faceted utilization of a key crop was a form of sustainable cultivation that ultimately enabled Volubilis to prosper for a lengthy period of time. An English antiquarian named John Windis describes the site in a 1725 book, A Journey to Meknes. One building seems to be part of the triumphal arch, there being several broken stones that bear inscriptions lying in the rubbish underneath which were fixed higher than any part now standing. It is 56 feet long and 15 feet thick, both sides exactly alike, built with very hard stones about a yard in length and half a yard thick. The arch is 20 feet wide and about 26 feet high. The inscriptions are upon large flat stones, which when entire were about 5 feet long and 3 feet broad, and the letters on them about 6 inches long. A bust lay a little way off, very much defaced, and was the only thing to be found that represented life except the shape of a foot seen under the lower part of a garment in the niche on the other side of the arch. About 100 yards from the arch stands a good part of the front of a large square building, which is 140 feet long and about 60 feet high. Part of the four corners are yet standing, but very little remains, except these of the front. Around the hill may be seen the foundation of a wall about two miles in circumference, which enclosed these buildings, on the inside of which lie scattered all over a great many stones of the same size the arch is built with, but hardly one stone left upon another. The arch, which stood about half a mile from the other buildings, seemed to have been a gateway and was just high enough to admit a man to pass through on horseback. The region was not only prized for its resources and fertile land, but also for its sustainable practices and ability to remain functional for several centuries during the existence of various groups and communities. After the fall of Rome, the Lugolese continued to prosper as a city in Morocco. During this time period, the spread of religions brought brief Christian settlement and Muslim occupations on the outside of the city and the inside. A section even served as a graveyard. The site was completely abandoned due to the construction of Fez, the essential cultural capital of Morocco, and subsequent relocation of Lugolese citizens to Idris. Following the desertion of the Lugolese, the site has functioned as a rich source of materials for construction of adjacent sites. Continued physical destruction, attributed to earthquakes and material depletion, has accumulated the ruins to what exists today. Consequent to the Lisbon earthquake, another British traveller, James Gray Jackson, writes in his 1820 account of Volubolus. Half an hour's journey after leaving the sanctuary of Moulay Dris Duron, and at the foot of Atlas, I proceed to the left of the road. Magnificent and massive ruins. The country, for miles round, is covered with broken columns of white marble. There are still standing two porticoes about 30 feet high and 12 wide, the top composed of one entire stone. I attempted to take a view of these immense ruins, which are furnished marble for the imperial palaces at Makinus and Tafalot. Pots and kettles of gold and silver coins are continually dug up from these ruins. Since Volubolus had many wealthy residents, there were a lot of houses that had mosaic floors. Somehow, despite Volubolus being unprotected for thousands of years, many of the mosaics have survived and show off the creative spirit of the people of Volubolus' head. The mosaics depicted Roman culture, myths, animals, figures, and geometric patterns. The house of Venus has a mosaic of the goddess Diana bathing. In Greek myths, she catches Actaeon looking at her and punishes him by turning him into a deer. He was later eaten by his own dogs. The house of Orpheus' floor shows different animals arranged in a circular frame listening to Orpheus' music. On the most prestigious street, the house of Ephebe contains a mosaic of Dionysus riding a chariot. One of the more unique mosaics of Volubolus portrays a horse falter riding his horse backwards. There were also two bronze statues discovered. One of them was of Cato the Younger, which was dated to be made around the time of Nero. The second statue is believed to be of Ephebe. It is a young man with an ivy crown whose right hand is empty, but it most likely held a torch. In 1915, just outside of Volubolus, 800 votive stelae were found in a temple dedicated to Saturn. The stelae were crudely carved and lacked the quality of other stelae found around the area. From 1887 to 1889, English journalist Walter Harris toured Morocco and took a written record in preparation for formal excavations of the site. There is not very much remain standing of the ruins. Two archways, each of great size and in moderately good preservation, alone tell the grandeur of the old city, while acres and acres of land are strewn with monuments and broken sculpture. A few isolated pillars also remain, and an immense drain or aqueduct, not unlike Coloca Maxima at Rome, opens into the river below. The Mediterranean climate of Volubolus, a fertile valley in northern Morocco, typically entails mild wet winters and hot dry summers and an ever-present danger of drought. In the customary practice of Greco-Roman city planning, streets were initially arranged to cross at right angles in a checkerboard pattern known as the Hypodamian system. Over time, the arrangement was altered to accommodate the growing population and addition of domestic and civic architecture, including houses, bathhouses, and shops. Ultimately, the population peaked at 20,000 residents in the 2nd century CE, and the site expanded from 30 acres, about half the area of a large shopping mall, to 100 acres. The grid city model was a natural solution that allowed cohesive and efficient urban expansion and can be applied to facilitate and plan development in contemporary context. The architects of Volubolus altered traditional Roman city orientation and design to better suit the hot climate and respond to domestic health needs. For instance, residences were commonly designed to face the north in avoidance of the sun's path and featured shady rooms and small gardens. To further facilitate comfort and temperature regulation throughout the hot and cold seasons, wealthy and high-class citizens inhabited residences with private baths, plunge pools, and patios with fountains. The city's water supply depended on aqueducts and consisted of an elaborate network of channels that carried water to both houses and bathhouses, and would later drain sewage and water into the adjacent river. Volubolus's designers are rightfully venerated for their genius use of advanced technology, particularly water tools and resources to provide a relaxing and leisure environment in the face of adverse weather conditions. In relation to water features, the site is valued for its farming landscape and cultivation techniques. For instance, the designers incorporated terraces throughout the valley to create arable fields and maximize crop yield. Volubolus's fertile lands and farming methods supported hundreds of years of olive production and allowed the city to become a major producer of olive oil. The same water and cultivation techniques were adopted by the nearby communities in northern Morocco and have remained unchanged for thousands of years. Today, these agricultural practices nurture an essential source of Morocco's income and economic potential. For instance, agriculture employs a quarter of Morocco's working population. In time, worldwide population growth and climate have intensified at a rapid rate. As communities grow, they increase material production and consumption, in turn, with unsustainable material cultivation and emissions aggravate global warming. Communities cannot continue to face the result of extreme weather events and temperature changes. At some point, probably now, societies will feel worried enough to change their design practices and standards to prioritize exploration and implementation, sustainable and climate resilient providing. Considering the increasing strain on farmers due to extreme drought and unreliable growing seasons, agricultural societies also need to reconsider the advanced yet conscientious methods of the past and explore solutions to prepare continued climate disasters and reliable resources. For example, we have a chance to study and recreate Volubolus's temperature regulation technique and farming practices. The global adaptation of environmentally friendly design and production practices is also the current course of climate change and environmental degradation. The site demonstrates orderly and systematic urban development and remains especially valuable in the study of urban planning, crop cultivation, sustainability, and climate change. In terms of architecture, industry, and commerce, the site contains some of the best preserved and authentic evidence of urbanism from the third century CE. Furthermore, the site offers alternative approaches to both domestic design and farming methodology such as energy efficient cooling and heating technologies, water conservation, and cost effective crop production. In modern day application, these methods manifest in the collection and reuse of fountain drain water, rain and storm water, ground water, and surface water, the implementation of climate appropriate plants and permeable hardscapes, the installation and maintenance of irrigation systems, and the adjustment of irrigation in arid and semi-arid regions to improve drought tolerance. Thank you for listening to our podcast and please visit our website at thedirtoncarbondating.com to learn more about Volubolus and other UNESCO World Heritage Sites. 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