Answer:
There are millions of architectural structures in the world, but only a few stand out due to their special qualities. Most of which are from ancient Rome. The Roman arch was the foundation of Rome's architectural mastery and massive expanse of building projects across the ancient world. It allowed the Romans to make bigger buildings, longer roads, and better aqueducts. The Roman arch is the ancestor of modern architecture. The central feature of an arch is the keystone. The wedge-shaped stone at the very top of the arch. It is the last stone placed during construction
. It locks all the other stones of the arch into position. The keystone bears almost no weight but is the center of redirecting the weight of the structure down and outwards.
The Romans used arches with circular tops, called rounded arches, which were made of stone. A series of rounded arches side by side is called an arcade. One of the foremost uses of the arch in the building was for bridges and aqueducts. When roads or pipes needed to cross an area without level terrains, such as a valley or river, an arcade of arches gave them the support they needed to sustain their weight off the ground.
This was extremely important in the development of Rome.
Without bridges to connect their roads, the Roman army would not have been able to march across Europe, expanding the Empire.
The arch held so much strength that many structures were built with it in mind
A prime example of an Ancient Roman Arches is the Bridge at Alcantara. The arch was first used in the Mediterranean world by those in Mesopotamia, Greece, Persia, and ancient Italy. While these cultures had the arch, they rarely used it except for underground tunnels and drainage systems
. The Romans learned the arch from the Etruscans of Tuscany and were the first people in the world to really figure out how to use it. Romans in the first centuries BC discovered how to use arches in the construction of bridges, aqueducts, and buildings.
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