The Roman Empire was literally built on a special form of extra-tough, self-healing concrete that has managed to stay strong for thousands of years. Modern scientists have previously been puzzled about how they made this “magic” building material, but new discoveries from Pompeii are offering fresh clues. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.

The findings come from the same team at MIT that described a potential recipe for Roman concrete in 2023. They primarily based this theory on a city wall in Priverno in southwest Italy, which was conquered by the Romans in the 4th century BCE.

This is what they found: a key ingredient is pozzolan, a reactive volcanic powder that comes from the city of Pozzuoli, just outside Naples and

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