Did the Romans invent concrete?
Roman concrete
Roman concrete, also called opus caementicium, was a material used in construction during the late Roman Republic until the fading of the Roman Empire. Roman concrete was based on a hydraulic-setting cement. Recently, it has been found that it materially differs in several ways from modern concrete which is based on Portland cement. Roman concrete is durable due to its incorporation of volcanic ash, which prevents cracks from spreading. By the middle of the 1st century, the material was used frequently, often brick-faced, although variations in aggregate allowed different arrangements of materials. Further innovative developments in the material, called the Concrete Revolution, contributed to structurally complicated forms, such as the Pantheon dome, the world's largest and oldest unreinforced concrete dome.[1]
Roman concrete
Jean-Pierre Adam, Anthony Mathews, Roman Building, 1994 Lynne C. Lancaster, Concrete Vaulted Construction in Imperial Rome, Cambridge University Press, 2005 Heather N. Lechtman & Linn W. Hobbs, “Roman Concrete and the Roman Architectural Revolution,” Ceramics and Civilization Volume 3: High Technology Ceramics: Past, Present, Future, edited by W.D. Kingery and published by the American Ceramics Society, 1986 W. L. MacDonald, The Architecture of the Roman Empire, rev. ed. Yale University Press, New Haven, 1982