If these discoveries can be presented in the back room of the Amay collegiate church, it is notably thanks to a large operation launched in 1987 with the underwater research center. “In this exhibition, we present vestiges of a Roman bridge that we found during the dragages in the Meuse organized at the end of the 80s. We situate these vestiges between the year minus 10 before Jesus Christ and minus 50. These are the only vestiges of Roman bridges that we have in Belgium.”
These dragages, completed in 1997, were the continuation of first operations carried out in the 1970s. During this first attempt, the whole river had not been flirted. Among the exhibited parts, there are different parts of the architecture of the bridge. Two large wooden stakes, iron hooves that hated the bridge tips or a huge stone, still under study, which was most certainly part of one of the columns of the bridge.
If wooden vestiges have been recovered, it is thanks to the type of tree used by the Romans. “The oak is preserved as long as it remains immersed in the water, Details Yvette Rosary. The piles we have recovered suffered a conservation treatment to be able to stay in the open air without deteriorating. “
The Pons Imperii exhibition is temporary. It will be open every Wednesday, Saturdays and Sundays until September 28. It will then be replaced by another temporary exhibition and so on for three years. Work has just started within the museum to solve humidity problems.
