Summary

Situated in south-east France, the Pont du Gard, built in the mid-1^st century, is the major element of a 50-km-long aqueduct which supplied the city of Nîmes, the former Roman colony of Nemausus. This three-level aqueduct-bridge, nearly 50 metres high, carried water across the Gardon river. The structure is mainly built of large dressed limestone blocks, while the top level is composed of rubble masonry.

This triple bridge, which measures 360 metres at its longest point on the top level, is an extraordinary feat of engineering and a technical masterpiece. It is also a work of art that transfigures the landscape.

Criteria

Criterion (i): The Pont du Gard is set against a natural landscape at the end of the gorges of the Gardon, highlighting its imposing and powerful lines. It is supported by the bedrock of the river that the main arch straddles. It appears extraordinarily light for such an enormous structure, due to the very large lower arches, the way the arches become gradually and symmetrically smaller, and the regularity of the upper gallery. With its carefully calculated construction and harmonious composition, it has been considered as a model and masterpiece since at least the Middle Ages.

Criterion (iii): While most Roman towns during the imperial era had aqueducts, the one at Nîmes is remarkable for the number of its civil engineering structures, its gentle slope and its flow rate. The Pont du Gard is an outstanding construction, bearing witness to the technical skills of the engineers and builders involved in urban and regional development, which was one of the hallmarks of the Roman Empire.

Criterion (iv): Le Pont du Gard is one of the structures that best represents the construction methods used during the era of the Roman Empire. With its three levels of different-sized arches, and its use of overlapping rings of archstones, each numbered to indicate its position. it is an outstanding example of bridges constructed during antiquity.