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The Romans were the first to build aqueducts. Aqueducts were construction that brought water to cities and industrial sites. These aqueducts were one of the greatest feasts of engineering in the ancient world. The aqueducts set a standard not equaled for over a thousand years after the fall of Rome. Many cities still maintain and use the ancient aqueducts for their water supply even today. Since Rome was the largest city it was where the aqueducts were concentrated. Rome itself had 11 constructed aqueducts over a period of 500 years. In Latin aqueducts means water + ere (aqua, “water”, and ducere, “to lead”). Nowadays instead of aqueducts we have pipes, ditches, canals, and tunnels. Only a portion of Rome’s aqueducts system actually cross over valleys on stone arches(30 miles out of a total of about 260 miles); the rest consisted of underground conduits(pipes) made mostly of stone and terra cotta but also of wood, leather, lead, and bronze. There was a limestone aqueduct built by the Assyrians around 691 BC to bring fresh water to the city of Nineveh. It was approximately built with 2,000,000 large blocks to make a water channel 30 feet (10 meters) high and 900 feet long across a valley. Water flowed to the city by the force of gravity alone and usually went through a series of distribution tanks within the city. The water that went into cities were divided into sections. The section consisted of the Rich, City fountains, and general uses. Water was shut down if it was scarce. Generally water was not stored, and the excess was used to flush out sewers. Roman aqueducts were built through out the empire and heir arches may still be in Greece, Italy, France, Spain, North Africa, and Asia Minor. As Rome fell apart in the 4th and 5th centuries, the system were destroyed. For most of the Middle Ages aqueducts were not used in western Europe, and people returned to getting their water from wells and local rivers.