Alberto Sánchez

This is the Roman aqueduct of Segovia, in central Spain. Rome signed it in gold. Gilded bronze letters, pegged into the granite. On both sides. Twenty metres up. At some point, the letters were taken. For centuries, nobody could say what it had read. But the peg holes stayed. In 1992, the epigrapher Géza Alföldy got up close and studied them, hole by hole. From the holes alone, he read the dedication back. It named the emperor who ordered the aqueduct built. Domitian. Someone took the letters. They left the words behind. 🏛️