EM 1110-2-1100 (Part I)
30 Apr 02
"vortex of luxury and a harbor of vice," an alluring combination that Romans found irresistible (Lencek and
Bosker 1998).
I-3-4. Modern Age
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, a long hiatus in coastal technology and engineering prevailed
throughout most of the European world with a few exceptions. Little is recorded on civil engineering
achievements during the Dark and Middle Ages. The threat of attack from the sea caused many coastal towns
and their harbors to be abandoned. Many harbors were lost due to natural causes such as rapid silting,
shoreline advance or retreat, etc. The Venice lagoon was one of the few populated coastal areas with
continuous prosperity and development where written reports document the evolution of coastal protection
works, ranging from the use of wicker faggots to reinforce the dunes to timber piles and stones, often
combined in a sort of crib work. Protection from the sea was so vital to the Venetians, that laws from 1282
to 1339 did not allow anyone to cut or burn trees from coastal woods, pick out mussels from the rock
revetments, let cattle upon the dikes, remove sand or vegetation from the beaches or dunes, or export
materials used for shore protection (Franco 1996).
In England, coastal engineering works date back to the Romans, who recognized the danger of floods and sea
inundation of low-lying lands. On the Medway, for example, embankments built by the Romans as sea
defense remained in use until the 18th century (Palmer and Tritton Limited 1996). The low-lying lands,
consisting of recently-deposited alluvial material, were exceeding fertile but were also vulnerable to flooding
from both runoff and storm surges. In the Middle Ages, the Church became instrumental in reclaiming and
protecting many marshes, and monks reclaimed portions of the Fylde and Humber estuaries. In 1225,
Henry III constituted by Charter a body of persons to deal with the question of drainage (Keay 1942).
Across the North Sea, the Friesland area of the Netherlands had a large and wealthy population in the period
500 - 1000 A. D., and increasing need for agricultural land led to building of sea dikes to reclaim land that
previously was used for grazing (Bijker 1996). Water boards developed in response to the need for a mutual
means to coordinate and enforce dike maintenance. These boards represent some of the earliest democratic
institutions in the Netherlands.
Engineering and scientific skills remained alive in the east, in Byzantium, where the Eastern Roman empire
survived for six hundred years while Western Rome decayed. Of necessity, Byzantium had become a sea
power, sending forth fleets of merchant ships and multi-oared dromonds (swift war vessels) throughout the
Black Sea and Mediterranean. When the weary soldiers of the first crusades reached Byzantium's capital city,
Constantinople, in 1097, they were amazed and awed by its magnificence, sophistication, and scientific
achievements. Constantinople was built on the hills overlooking the Golden Horn, a natural bay extending
north of the Bosporus. Marble docks lined the waterfront, over which passed the spices, furs, timber, grain,
and the treasures of an empire. A great chain could be pulled across the mouth of the Golden Horn to prevent
intrusion by enemy fleets. A series of watch towers extended along the length of the Sea of Marmara, the
Bosphoros, and the south shore of the Black Sea, and the approach of an enemy fleet could be signaled to the
emperor within hours by an ingenious code using mirrors by day and signal fires by night (Lamb 1930).
The Renaissance era (about XV - XVI centuries) was a period of scientific and technologic reawakening,
including the field of coastal engineering. While the standards for design and construction remained those
developed primarily by the Romans, a great leap in technology was achieved through the development of
mechanical equipment and the birth of the hydraulic sciences including maritime hydraulics (Franco 1996).
"The Italian School of Hydraulics was the first to be formed and the only one to exist before the middle of
the 17th century" (Rouse and Ince 1963). Leonardo da Vinci (1465-1519), with his well-known experimental
method, based on the systematic observation of natural phenomenon supported by intellectual reasoning and
I-3-4
History of Coastal Engineering
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