The longest aqueduct of the ancient world, the Valens aqueduct brought water to the capital of the eastern Roman empire: Byzantium or Constantinople, today known as Istanbul. Monumental sections of the aqueduct bridge still majestically stride across the city. In this episode we talk about the reasons for embarking on this colossal project, its development, decline and adaptation, and its place in the cultural heritage of today’s Turkey.

Speaker: Mariëtte Verhoeven. Interviewer: Edmund Hayes.

Mariëtte Verhoeven is university lecturer and researcher at Radboud University specialising in the field of late antique and Byzantine cultural and architectural history and heritage.

This episode was produced by Edmund Hayes and Jouke Heringa.

Further Reading

Mariëtte Verhoeven, F. Gerritsen, & Özgün Özçakır, Revitalizing Istanbul’s Water Heritage: The Valens Aqueduct. Blue Papers, 2(1) (2023): 154–163. https://doi.org/10.58981/bluepapers.2023.1.15

Ward, Kate, James Crow and Martin Crapper. 2017. “Water-Supply Infrastructure of Byzantine Constantinople.” Journal of Roman Archaeology 30: 175–95. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1047759400074079

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Edmund Hayes

Twitter: @Hedhayes20

https://www.linkedin.com/in/edmund-hayes-490913211/

https://leidenuniv.academia.edu/EdmundHayes

https://hcommons.org/members/ephayes/

Mariette Verhoeven

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariëtte-verhoeven-ba10153

https://radboud.academia.edu/Mari%C3%ABtteVerhoeven