Roman Roof Construction
How imbrices and tegulae actually fitted together
Ancient Roman tiled roofing is often found in large quantities on archaeological digs of Roman buildings but it is sometimes difficult to imagine what the terracotta fragments looked like when they were all still in situ covering a roman house.
We
generally find two shapes of roof tile and we call these tegulae (singular
is tegula) and imbrices (singular is imbrex).
Tegulae are flat oblong tiles with raised sides.
Imbrices
are half pipes, slightly enlarged at one end.
They fit together so that a tegula always slightly overlaps the one below it and on each side the gaps between the tegulae are covered by the imbraces. This is very similar to tiled roof construction still in use in many parts of the world today.
Much of the housing stock of Europe and North America is still covered in tiles that follow this ancient Roman design pretty closely. Next time you are out and about, see if you can spot some modern Tegulae and Imbrices. My own London house built in 1930 has a roof that someone living almost 2000 years ago would instantly recognise. Even the colour is the same!
CB 2003-11