Whilst water is the most important substance on earth, we take it for granted in our modern lives.
As an archaeologist, Jay Ingate looks at water in the development of urban centres in early Roman Britain. Whilst the Romans sought to channel water for human purposes they also had a respectful relationship to it because of its believed connection to spirits and deities. Their largest sewer was even blessed with the name of a Goddess. Sam Grinsell explores how that connection to nature was lost as European colonialism led to the grand history of dam making and British engineers sought to ensure a pipeline to Egyptian cotton. He explains how this mastery over water continues with the artificially constructed landscapes of the 19th and 20th century North Sea coasts.
How does out detachment from waters’ source diminish our ability to connect what comes out of our taps to the intensifying dangers of droughts and floods resulting from climate change? Might an understanding of its history illuminate and offer solutions to our current dilemmas?
Jay Ingate is Senior Lecturer in Roman and Classical Archaeology at Canterbury Christ Church University and his research focuses on the complex role of water in the development of urban centres in early Roman Britain Sam Grinsell is a Research Fellow at the Bartlett School of Architecture and follows rivers, canals, seas and oceans in the way they shape the spaces in which we live. He is currently working on a three-year project titled ‘Making North Sea coasts in England, Flanders and the Netherlands, c.1800-1950’. Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough is a Lecturer in Environmental History at Bath Spa University She’s a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker on the scheme which promotes research on the radio.
This New Thinking episode of the Arts & Ideas podcast was made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), part of UKRI. You can find more collected on the Free Thinking programme website of BBC Radio 3 under New Research or if you sign up for the Arts & Ideas podcast you can hear discussions about a range of topics.
Producer: Jayne Egerton
Black Atlantic
The Red Shoes
Queer history, new narrative in San Fransisco
Wolfson Prize 2023
Writing and Place: The Cairngorms
Writing and Place: Cornwall
The Black Country past and present
Landladies
Depicting AIDS in Drama
Late works
Dark Places
ETA Hoffmann
My Neighbour Totoro
Oliver Postgate
The Wife of Bath
The Wife of Bath
Glenda Jackson on filming Sunday Bloody Sunday
Writing and Place: Wales
Writing and Place: The North-East
Writing and Place: Northern Ireland
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
The Modern West
Global News Podcast
Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4
The Infinite Monkey Cage
You’re Dead to Me
Elis James and John Robins