The old adage claims that all roads lead to Rome, and now, so too does the UNESCO World Heritage List. At the latest annual meeting of the World Heritage Committee, Italy's Via Appia (or ‘Appian Way’) joined 23 other cultural and natural sites on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
The famous Roman road is not only historically and culturally significant, but it marks a unique milestone for Italy, making it the 60th World Heritage for the country— the most of any nation.
The road was originally conceived of as a military necessity for the Roman army around 312 BCE during the mid-Republican period when Roman expansionism and conquest was spreading into the furthest reaches of Italy. Running more than 800 kilometers from the heart of Rome to Brundisium (modern-day Brindisi) in the heel of the Italian peninsula, the Via Appia is not only the oldest Roman road, but it is also considered the most important.
As a military route, the road enabled the swift and massive scale of the Roman army as it conquered southern Italy, improving the movement of troops and supplies, but also of critical information to and from Rome. In the years after conquest, the Via Appia facilitated a heightened level of connections between cities and settlements previously unseen on such a scale in Italy.
Other intercity roads are known to have existed in Etruria— the territory of the Etruscans north of Rome— however, none compared to the impressive length and engineering mastery that the Romans had achieved with the Via Appia.
https://lnkd.in/duPK3uPN
Site Manager at RHI Magnesita
6moYou are right my brother 👏