Imaginary Syllabi: Material Science in Ancient Rome

Fordham offers summer courses in Rome each June…what about a course on the Materials Science in Ancient Rome?…

Reading List

• Sparavigna (2011) has written a brief introduction to “Materials Science in Ancient Rome” focusing on De Architectura” by Vitruvius and the “Naturalis Historia” by Pliny the Elder
  • Pliny (trans Bostock), The Natural History – may be possible to pick excerpts instead
  • Vitruvius, de Architectura
• Casson, Everyday Life in Ancient Rome – have students think about materials in their own everyday life and compare to everyday life in the ancient world.
• Hall, Materials: A Very Short Introduction – very light science introduction
• Gordon, Structures: Or Why Things Don’t Fall Down – hghly readable, connects materials properties to mechanical properties

Other reading materials:

• Healy, Mining and Metallurgy in the greek and roman world
• Sparavigna has also written on ancient concrete and depletion gilding

Organizing Themes

Materials and their role in human flourishing Ceramics (break this up into cement & glass) - Metals - (bio)Polymers Structure - Property - Processing

Cement

• Cement, Concrete & geopolymers in building construction
  • Visit: Archeological sites (esp. Pantheon, Baths of Caracalla, Ostia Antica )

Other ideas:

• Pottery and amphoras, global trade

Glass

• Glass (as mosaic and small glass blown works)
  • Visit: Tabula Rasa for discussion and demonstration of marble and mosaic glass working
  • Visit: Vatican mosaic studio.
• Activity: Micromosaic workshop? Glassblowing workshop?

Metals

• Background material:
  • Metallurgy and metal processing in the ancient world
  • Metalsmiths guide to Rome — some nice ideas include: Museo Nazionale di Villa Giulia and Biblioteca dell’Istituto Nazionale di Archeologia e Storia dell Arte
• Visit: museum collections focused on metallurgy
  • Museo Nazionale Romano has some roman bronzes and coins, and also has a Jesuit collection as it houses Athanasius Kircher’s collection
  • Museo di Chimica Primo Levi — not ancient focused, but perhaps valuable

• Activity: Lost-wax microcasting class at Accademia delle Arti Orafe

• Other ideas:
  • Sewer pipes!

Polymers

• Bartolucci, et al. Phase diagram of Cacio e pepe (2025) – experimental physics study, soft-matter, self assembly, phase diagrams
• Pasta making activity (biopolymers)

Other ideas:

• Physical chemistry of gelato

Assessments

• Daily blog posts / reflections - materials that you used today that weren’t present in Roman times
• Final paper/project ideas
  • Time traveller: How would you produce some modern material with the technology available in ancient rome?
  • Academic research: Dive into one of the topics (perhaps as a focus on conservation science?)

Community notes

• Elizabeth Thrall suggests other possible topics: (i) Lead pipes and plumbing…with a connection to contemporary environmental justice issues in Flint, Michigan; (ii) phase separations using excellent olive oil and aged balsamic (with paired degustation); (iii) cultural heritage preservation and spectroscopy/analytical chemistry methods
• (16 Jan 2026) Recent insight from Pompeii: “Roman builders pre-mixed dry quicklime with pozzolan before adding water, initiating an exothermic reaction. This technique, known as hot mixing, results in a particularly durable, self-healing form of concrete.”