ARGO Roman country estate with mills

200 m beneath the main residence, in the rocky valley of a stream, walls carved into the rock, channels and recesses were discovered. Where this can be best seen, a channel with a trapezoidal profile that was narrower at the bottom housed a millwheel; on the east side was a recess into which the wheel’s axle was set. Parallel to it was a smaller groove for a cog. The millwheel was large, and may have been 6 m in diameter. The interpretation is confirmed by the discovery of a fragment of a bottom millstone that will have been 1 m in diameter.

The 3D reconstruction shows how the millstone was driven by water employing a horizontal cog that was set over the millwheel, and a cog parallel to it. The complex apparently included two more mills 80 m further downstream. A millpond 150 m further upstream ensured that the mill still worked when the stream carried little water.