Engineering an Empire: Carthage

For this week’s assignment I watched Engineering an Empire: Carthage. This show goes on to talk about how the engineering feats of Carthage made them one of the superpowers of the Mediterranean. They talk about the pipe system how they had running water and also a sewage system. They talked about the protection of the city which consisted of three walls: the first was a ditch and low wall, the second a stone wall and the third wall was 40 ft tall and 30 ft wide. The wall had a circumference of 23 miles. While Rome did over take the city they never got through these walls. They talked about Carthage's naval power. They talked about  the Quinquereme which was the best war ship at the time. They talked about Carthage's port that had a commercial entrance and a military one that could hold up to 223 ships. They also talked about Hannibal and the engineering skills that they had to get from Carthage to Rome on land with Elephants. 

The show is narrated by Peter Weller and has many reenactments. They show pictures and blue print and 3^rd models. They also have professors and authors talking about Carthage and what made it so powerful. They gave some great facts on the engineering and how theses inventions helped Carthage gain power. I would have to look up the professors and authors to see if they really are qualified I’m sure they are but it wouldn’t hurt to double check. I noticed some of the things we need to do in our films like have the voice over narration and reenactments. One thing I noticed was that they tried to make the reenactments very dramatic but they were almost comical.  Over all it was informative and entertaining at the same time.