Barbegal aqueduct and mill

The Barbegal aqueduct and mill were structures built a long, long time ago to help people with their work. Think of the aqueduct as a big pipe that carried water from one place to another. The mill was like a huge machine that used the power of the water to do some really cool things.

Let's start with the aqueduct. Imagine you have a big bucket of water, but you need to move it to another place that is really far away. You can't carry it all that way by yourself, right? That's where the aqueduct comes in. It's like a really long pipeline made of stone and concrete that carries the water from one place to another. The aqueduct at Barbegal was over 17 miles long!

Now, let's talk about the mill. Have you ever seen a water wheel? It's like a giant wheel with lots of little "buckets" all around it. The wheel gets turned by the flowing water in a river or an aqueduct. In the case of the Barbegal mill, they used the water from the aqueduct to turn the water wheels.

The water that flowed through the aqueduct would fill up the buckets on the water wheel, making it turn round and round. This movement was used to power the mill and do different types of work. For example, the mill was used to grind wheat into flour, and to saw wood into planks.

The Barbegal mill was a very special mill because it had lots and lots of water wheels. In fact, it had 16 of them, all working together! Each wheel was connected to a different part of the mill, so they could do many tasks at once. It was like a giant teamwork machine!

This aqueduct and mill were built by people in ancient Roman times. They were very smart and knew how to use the power of water to make their lives easier. The Barbegal aqueduct and mill show us how even many years ago, people were finding clever ways to get their work done.