2000 Years to Learn How Romans Built Tunnels

The Romans were one of the greatest civilizations in history in terms of knowledge. One of its remarkable feats was its tunnel technology. Only in 1871, with the opening of the Fréjus tunnel in the Alps, was human civilization able to create a longer tunnel than the Romans did 2000 years before.

After the Barbarians took control of the Roman Empire, the tunnel-building technology got lost, and it took us all that time to regain it. It is a good reminder of how our collective human knowledge and civilization is fragile, and if we don’t preserve it, we can take several steps back.

We are in a different world today with the Internet, where it is much harder for some knowledge to get lost forever as it was in the Roman time, but it is a good reminder of how things that we take for sure can change and take a long time to regain back.

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