UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL DE COLOMBIA

FACULTAD DE MINAS
LABORATORIO DE TOPOGRAFIA
TAREA: # 3-4 GRUPO: # 8 FECHA: 09/10/2019
NOMBRE: ROBERTH HERNAN MORALES BENAVIDES CARNÉ: 99102810224

https://metode.es/revistas-metode/monograficos/los-agrimensores-romanos-
cartografos-de-territorios.html

The history of the land division has always been accompanied by surveying. This branch of
the topography was practiced since the Bronze Age, if we accept the conclusions of the
British archaeologists who studied an immense plot organized in hazas in the plains of
Dartmoor, in Cornwall, which dated between 1700 and 1400 BC. To talk about Roman
surveying, you have to take a thousand-year leap and place yourself at the end of the 5th
century and the beginning of the 4th century BC in Italy, when we find the first remains of
agrarian divisions around Rome, in the Sabine Mountains, in Etruria and in Lazio.

As for the oldest mention of a cadastral plan, we do not have to go back before the second
century BC, which seems to indicate a delay in relation to the practice of divisions, of which
we have evidence at least two hundred years before. From the 4th to the 1st century BC,
the golden age of their activity, Roman surveyors drew a large number of limitations (grid
plots) and measurements in many undivided lands until then.

The theoretical texts of surveyors who realize this activity are late. They were compiled at
the time of Vespasiano, at a time when the Roman administration faced a situation of great
disorder in the management of public lands. These are archaeological texts, as the
surveyors of the Flavia dynasty did not have the mission of plotting new plots, but, on the
contrary, drafting the instructions that the surveyors had to take to the different archives and
field deposits, to review the contributions. In these texts, the kind of situations that can be
found is explained to the inspectors

and the frauds to avoid. In short, surveyors trying to understand, themselves, what their
former predecessors had done on the ground, when they had been tasked to assign land to
successive waves of settlers, and that for a minimum of four centuries.
www.traianvs.net › pdfs › topografia-en- roma

The measurement, establishment and mapping of agricultural plots is one of the oldest
missions entrusted to topographic science. Its ritual character in the ancient villages reached
its maximum expression in Roman times. We have already seen that the joke, being a
deficient instrument in these labors, continues to appear among the Roman surveyors,
probably thanks to the ritual character that is conferred both on the apparatus and the
mensor process.

The reduction of agricultural land to measurable polygons is, however, an essential process
to apply justice in the distribution, usufruct and transmission of farms, as the vital economic
importance that agricultural activity has for the humanity from the Neolithic forces. It is
precisely in Roman times when this process reaches a paradigmatic character. This is a
moment in which the advances of the conquest and the adhesion of huge amounts of new
land to the Empire, with its subsequent distribution among large landowners from the retired
army commanders or among settlers of diverse nature, increased production, wealth and
power of the Empire to limits never known. We owe Frontino many of the data we know
about how to fairly limit the land and other details of this issue. Columela also gives us
numerous data, including the fact that any surface measure in Rome was referred to square
feet.

The multiples of the basic surface measure, the square foot (0.0876 m 2), formed varied
surface extensions, among the most common the actus (14,400 p 2 = 1,261 m2), the
iugerum (28,800 p2 = 2,523 m2), haere - dium (57,600 p2 = 5,046 m2), century (5,760,000
p 2 = 504,576 m2), and the saltus (144,000,000 p2 = 12,610,440 m2). Well, if from an actus,
a square of 35.5 m on the side, we would like to build with a joke only one saltus, a square
of 3551 m on the side (100x100 actus), the result would certainly not be a square. We dare
to doubt that the result was a square even using the most accurate surveyor squad.

In this way, we move the problem to the external limits of a centuriation of more than 20
saltus on the side and reduce the solution by these methods to the impossible. There is no
choice but to use triangulation methods to check the accuracy of the alignments and the
angle of the plot. Even if the major sides are traced by diopter, with the help of light signals
at night, we must close the triangles to verify that the angle is still 90 ° at the closing point
opposite the starting point. This is triangulation.
Built the outer limits of the division and divided these into centuries (710 m side = 20x20
actus) is when the surveyor squads for smaller divisions will come into play. A different
problem than the difficult construction of a large Roman centuriate, is that of measurement,
division or transfer to the plane of relatively small surfaces. In these cases, the surveyor's
squad is always the one indicated. Representations of these operations we have seen in the
modern treaties of the 16th and 17th centuries. Pomodoro collects several of these cases,
in which he advises, in the same way that Frontino did, reduce irregular farms to polygons
using the square.

When the Roman engineer planned the communication between two cities, he chose wisely
the best of the corridors that would allow him to draw with gentle slopes without great costs
and at the same time not to move him far from the straight line. This extreme that we have
verified on many occasions, far from being the result of chance, we must impute it to the
ingenuity of the technicians who knew how to use the necessary instruments to determine
the shape of the terrain, the distances and the altitude of the key points for the layout . In
short, it was necessary to have precision maps that allowed the correct choice of the layout
and the most appropriate alternatives when the broken terrain advised to move away from
the straight line. To create these maps, the formation of triangle meshes is necessary, which
are then filled with new data until the whole land is formed. We do not know how the Romans
could express the altimetry in these maps since it is not known that they used the contours,
but somehow they would draw at least the

higher points and hills, indicating the difference between them. Once the general layout has
been established, with the signaling of the points of obligatory passage in the terrain, through
the use of diopters and if necessary with long-distance visualization techniques, the pulls
are the most versatile instrument to complete the layout in the partial sections formed .
Therefore, it does not seem necessary to resort to other elaborate path hypothesis and less
by using ineffective instruments for this mission, such as gossip, so often seen in modern
texts, or by strange techniques of successive approximation to definitive alignment. , in
which it would be necessary to use several days for the work that effectively done does not
take more than few hours.

For the establishment of the slopes so that they are the minimum possible, uniform and
always below the recommended maximums, there are several very simple instruments that
will perfectly serve this mission. In the same way that the joke does not have any use in
these tracing tasks, the corobate is not useful for the rethinking of roads since it moves
points in the horizontal plane and therefore it is useless to trace the usual slopes on the
roads. Simpler instruments are much more efficient, such as the dioptra itself, or much more
versatile and manageable, such as the levels of whose origin, probably due to its own
simplicity of construction and use, nothing can be prepared, or the eclimeter, a simple
measuring device. of earrings, consisting of a graduated vertical limbo held by hand or on a
vertical foot, in which a ruler is installed that can be provided with pinulas and that turning
on the center of the limbo indicates the value of the slope.

The levels are used by placing the first two about six meters away from each other and with
the unevenness between them that is intended to drag, the first being referenced to the
starting level. The third is moving on the ground indicating the desired plot dimensions and
this occurs when its upper part is flush through the visual launched from the first two. The
system is based on the projection principle of two horizontal lines that are located in the
same plane, not necessarily horizontal but always perpendicular to the vertical.

The same principle of projection of lines located in the same plane, but in this case vertical,
is the one used for the layout in plan by means of pulls, formerly called banners. They are
also used in minimum groups of three so as to ensure the drag of the line into the plane
formed by the two that mark the direction. We see, therefore, that the layout of roads in plan
and elevation does not require complicated instruments once the obligatory points of
passage have been precisely established, within a reasonable distance they enter.

https://www.ehowenespanol.com/instrumentos-topografia-romana-lista_309853/

Roman measuring instruments were generally adaptations of the devices used by the
ancient Greeks. Borrowing and perfecting the methods of studying Greeks, the Romans
were able to carry out very complex and precise construction projects. The Roman land
surveyors, or "land meters," used these topographic tools to plan and build a variety of
structures, such as temples, roads and aqueducts.

Joke

The groma, sometimes known as the surveyor's cross, was the most widely used Roman
topography tool. The joke consisted of a wooden cross attached to a stick. The wand was
placed vertically on the ground, after which the surveyor used the arms of the cross to
calculate straight lines and right angles. The joke had many uses, but it was particularly
important for the planning of the Roman roads.
Dioptra

The diopter, like the groma, was an instrument for measuring angles. It was more
sophisticated than the joke and could be used to calculate angles and gradients as well as
distances. By rotating an observation bar around a central table, the surveyor could calculate
the angles and distances with respect to a secondary object. A series of small levels of water
that the instrument carried together helped the surveyor to keep the diopter perfectly level.

The chorobate

The chorobate was a basic level with a Roman spirit. It had a variety of uses, but it was
particularly important when surveyors needed to generate large areas of flat land in advance
for more construction projects. The instrument consisted of a series of plumb plugs hanging
from a bar approximately 20 feet (6 meters) in length. The levels were measured by aligning
the plumb lines with the vertical lines in the chorobate.

Decempeda

The Decampeda was a simple wooden rod that was used to measure distances. Each
graduated rod measured 10 Roman feet (3 meters) in total. Two rods were used for
measuring longer lengths, with each rod turned down, one after the other.

Odometer

For measuring longer distances, particularly for planned or existing roads, Roman surveyors
used an instrument called an odometer. This device with wheels was placed on the side of
a car. When the car was pushed along, a gear attached to the odometer wheel dropped a
stone into a container after the end of each Roman mile. This device was commonly used
to calculate the distance between cities, leaving a permanent milestone placed after every
mile.

https://www.sergioalejogomez.com/la-agrimensura-romana-y-el-diseno-de-la-
barcino-romana/

That is where some of the technicians who were at the service of the Roman Empire were
put to work. Perhaps they were legionaries led by a Prefectus Castrorum, an officer
responsible for plotting camps and fortifications. They decided the starting point and the
shape of a new city that would have the name of Colonia Iulia Augusta Paterna Fauentia
Barcino. A colony in honor of Emperor Augustus, and that would spread on a regular, orderly
and modern way over the entire mountain. With rectangular apples and wide and straight
streets and with a wall to touch the two rivers that surrounded it.

These men were gromaticis and menstruators, the surveyors of the time. With a joke, on a
stone at the highest point of the mountain, an augur made a prayer and an offering to the
gods of the place and to the health of the emperor, and traced an axis that ran from mountain
to sea, which would be called Decumanus Maximus, and a perpendicular in the direction
parallel to the sea, which would be called Cardo Máximo. Men with ropes and sticks with
pennants were marking the corners of the houses apples. Meanwhile, a joke parallel to the
central one marked the points where these streets met the wall, and the four doors were
pointed out. Then a plow, dragged by two oxen, opened a groove marking the entire
perimeter, interrupted where the four doors were. Finally the enclosure was consecrated
with a prayer and a sacrifice to the gods and the emperor.

While the construction of the streets and temples began there, those men began to organize
the territory of the plain, and with a diopter, from the top of the Barcino mountain, they
focused the rest of the nearby mountains and began to take measures to organize and mark
with posts the same plots that would be distributed among the settlers who had to come to
settle in the city. In that way the centuriation of the plain began. Once the reference points
were chosen, it was necessary to extend the division of the lands along the plain, marking
the new roads that would give access to the grid of plots.

Other technicians studied how to bring the water from nearby sources to the walls, to supply
drinking water and to remove waste from the city through the sewers to the nearby streams.
For this, the corobates were used, instruments to indicate the precise slopes that would
allow to bring the water, with channels on land or with aqueducts. They also studied the
slopes of the sewers that had to evacuate rainwater and waste from the houses and public
baths of the city.

https://es.scribd.com/doc/106592494/Topografia-Romana-I

Roman engineering works are characterized among other things by responding to a very
careful geometry. The roads have, when the terrain is conducive, long and precise
alignments, their slopes are smooth. Cities and fields were scrupulously squared to reach
the dimensions of these huge sized plots. But probably the aqueducts, those long pipes that
carried water from natural sources or other catchments to cities, for human consumption,
reach the paradigm of geometric perfection, precisely because its operation is strongly
conditioned to this factor.

When we have analyzed the construction process of these works and the rethinking and
construction methodology, we have been raised by reasonable doubts about the way in
which Roman technicians managed to accurately measure and build everything in its place.
These works sometimes acquire extreme complexity and their realization, even today and
with our means, would be the object of maximum care and not a little difficulty in its
rethinking, so as to ensure its proper functioning. After some time analyzing these extremes,
strongly motivated by the little that is known about it and how scarcely convincing the
proposed Roman topographic science is, in most of the modern texts written for this purpose,
in this work we will present an advance of what we have been developing on this particular
theme.

At the same time that we will present some of the instruments that we have reconstructed,
their operation and the result of the experiences that we have carried out with them, we will
briefly expose some of the techniques that, being perfectly available to Roman specialists,
could be used successfully in His engineering works.

In conclusion, the topography of antiquity remains one of the most unknown disciplines in
our time. In this, it accompanies the Engineering of the old Empire itself, a science in which
perhaps more is ignored than is known and in which fundamental aspects remain to be
discovered. These unknowns can and should be tackled from the analysis of Roman
engineering works and, in this work, professionals and technicians who have the appropriate
knowledge and training will have to intervene to unravel them. It is necessary to start from
the basis that it is not possible to carry out many of these works with rudimentary methods
or without enough knowledge in hydraulic engineering, or roads as appropriate. That these
works are not viable without the large-scale application of an advanced topographic science,
that it is also necessary to study the planning, the technical methodology used in an
acceptable and reasonable way, the procedures and minimum performance in the execution
and ultimately any other factor technician who conditions the work.

Additional Reviews.

turomanopreferido.blogspot.com › 2015/10 › topografia-de-roma

https://www.buenastareas.com › materias › agrimensura-en-roma