Eupalinos

Tunnel of Eupalinos

Entrance of tunnel

Eupalinos (Ancient Greek: Εὐπαλῖνος) or Eupalinus of Megara was an ancient Greek engineer who built the Tunnel of Eupalinos on Samos Island in the late 6th century BC. Though the construction of the tunnel has been attributed to the tyrant Polycrates of Samos, it is now considered to be a later construction and having been built between 550 and 530 BC. In any case, the tunnel was, and is, regarded as a major feat of engineering.

The tunnel 1,036 m (3,399 ft) long conveyed water from a spring near Mount Kastro through the mountain into the ancient city of Samos (modern Pythagoreio). It was the longest one of its time and it still exists. The tunnel was excavated from both ends, but it is not the first one known to be built in this manner -- a tunnel channeling water to Jerusalem was built from both ends at the same time earlier, in the 8th century BC.

The route of the tunnel does not follow a direct line -- for several hundred meters on both ends it does follow a straight line, but in the middle third there are several turns. Additionally, the tunnel has two parts: A main tunnel and a trench running along the left side of the main tunnel. The main tunnel is 1.8 m × 1.8 m (5.9 ft × 5.9 ft) square in cross-section. And, while the main tunnel is horizontal, the trench gets progressively deeper with an average gradient of 0.4% and gets from 3.5 to 8.5 m (11 to 28 ft) deep. On the bottom of the trench ran terracotta pipeline carrying the water.

Eupalinos is considered the first hydraulic engineer in history whose name has been passed down. Apart from that, though, nothing more is known about him.

Efpalinos Tunnel, a road tunnel built under the Geraneia mountains in Corinthia and completed in 2017, is named after Eupalinos.

See also

• Ancient Greek units of measurement

Further reading

• Olson, Åke (2012). "How Eupalinos navigated his way through the mountain: An empirical approach to the geometry of Eupalinos". Anatolia Antiqua. XX. Institut Français d’Études Anatoliennes: 25–34. doi:10.3406/anata.2012.1323.
• Apostol, Tom (2004). "The Tunnel of Samos" (PDF). Engineering and Science. 67 (1): 30–40.
• Burns, Alfred (1971). "The Tunnel of Eupalinus and the Tunnel Problem of Hero of Alexandria". Isis. 62 (2): 172–185. doi:10.1086/350729. S2CID 145064628.
• Goodfield, June; Toulmin, Stephen (1965). "How Was the Tunnel of Eupalinus Aligned?". Isis. 56 (1): 46–55. doi:10.1086/349924. S2CID 145662351.
• Goodfield, June (June 1964). "The Tunnel of Eupalinus". Scientific American. 210 (6): 104–110. Bibcode:1964SciAm.210f.104G. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0664-104.
• Kienast, Hermann J.; Bernd Meissner (1995). Die Wasserleitung des Eupalinos auf Samos (in German). Bonn: Habelt (in Komm.). ISBN 3-7749-2713-8.
• Legon, Ronald P. (1981). Megara : the political history of a Greek city-state to 336 B.C. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-1370-2.
• Mitchell, B. M. (1973). "Herodotus and Samos". Journal of Hellenic Studies. 95: 75–91. doi:10.2307/630871. JSTOR 630871. S2CID 162925054.
• Shipley, Graham (1987). A history of Samos, 800-188 BC. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 0-19-814868-2.
• Van der Waerden, B. L. (1968). "Eupalinos and His Tunnel". Isis. 59 (1): 82–83. doi:10.1086/350338. S2CID 224832741.
• White, K.D. (1984). Greek and Roman technology. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-1439-3.

External links

• [1] Archived 2017-08-26 at the Wayback Machine
• Dan Hughes: The Tunnel of Eupalinos
• Tom M. Apostol: The Tunnel of Samos (HTML)
• The Eupalinian aqueduct by the Greek Ministry of Culture