El transporte de grandes fustes monolíticos por el interior de la trama urbana de Roma

One of the questions we have to answer when studying the process of building Rome’s huge temples is how their large monolithic shafts were moved through the city. The shafts used in some of the temples were enormous. For example, the temple of Antoninus and Faustina in the Roman Forum and the Forum of Peace were built, respectively, with shafts of cipollino and granito rosa from Aswan. They would have had to have been taken through the city centre where manoeuvring such large loads through the narrow streets would not have been an easy task. We will attempt to hypothesise not only the possible routes along which these enormous blocks were transported, but also the mechanical operations that would have been needed to overcome the frequent obstacles that would have been encountered.