Karamagara Bridge

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Coordinates: 38 ° 55 ′ 30 ″  N , 38 ° 39 ′ 31 ″  E

Karamagara Bridge
BW
Convicted Roman road to Melitene
Crossing of Arapgir Çayı
place Near Ağın, Elazığ Province , Eastern Anatolia ( Turkey )
construction Pointed arch bridge with vaulted vaults
Number of openings 1
Clear width 17 m
construction time 5th / 6th Century AD
location
Karamagara Bridge (Turkey)
Karamagara Bridge

Possibly the oldest preserved pointed arch bridge; Sunk in the Keban reservoir today

The Karamagara Bridge ( Turkish : Karamağara Köprüsü , "Bridge of the Black Cave") is a late Roman bridge in the ancient region of Cappadocia in eastern Turkey and possibly the oldest known pointed arch bridge .

Location and condition

The single-arch bridge spans the rocky gorge of the Arapgir Çayı , a tributary of the Euphrates , with a clear width of 17 m. Since the Keban Dam was completed in 1975, it has sunk together with large parts of the Arapgir Çayı river valley in the floods of the Euphrates.

In ancient times, the Roman road to Melitene led across the bridge , the route of which was cut into the rock near the crossing point on both sides of the river. The name Karamağara ("black cave") is probably derived from the partially artificially enlarged crevices on the southern bank, which were carved into the blackish rock at a height of 75 m above the bridge and served for their protection. The bridge was mentioned quite often in the travel reports of early European travelers.

Before the flooding, the Karamagara Bridge and other endangered ancient monuments were measured by the Technical University of the Middle East in Ankara and the results of the investigation were published. The remains of another Roman bridge at the village of Bahadın indicate the existence of an older crossing downstream.

Pointed arch

The pointed arch is made of wedge stones without a mortar connection . On the eastern, downstream side, a largely intact Christian inscription runs in Greek along almost the entire length of the arch rib, quoting Psalm 121, verse 8 of the Bible : It reads:

Κύριος ὁ Θεὸς φυλ [ά] ξει τὴν εἰσοδ [όν] σου κε τὴν ἐ [ξ] οδόν σου ἀπὸ τοῦ νῦν καὶ ἔὴως τοῦ] νἀς,.
Kýrios ho Theós phyláxei tēn eisodón sou ke tēn exodón sou apó tou nyn kai héōs tou aiṓnos, amḗn, amḗn, amḗn.
The Lord God keep your entrance and exit from now on and forever, amen, amen, amen.

A paleographic examination of the Greek letters suggests that it was built in the 5th or 6th century AD. Since the majority of the Roman masonry bridges rested either on semicircular or, to a lesser extent, segmental arches , the Karamagara Bridge is an early and rare example of the use of the pointed arch not only in late ancient bridge construction, but also in architectural history in general Sassanid examples, especially from early Christian church building in Syria and Mesopotamia, the bridge proves the pre-Islamic origin of the pointed arch in Middle Eastern architecture, which the Muslim conquerors subsequently adopted and developed.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Galliazzo (1995), p. 92
  2. ↑ a b c Warren (1991), pp. 61-63
  3. ↑ a b O'Connor (1993), p. 129
  4. ↑ a b c Hild (1977), p. 145
  5. ↑ KA (1967), pp. 54-57
  6. ↑ Hild (1977), p. 145 (Hild incorrectly cites Psalm 120 as the source.)
  7. ↑ Hellenkemper (1977-1999), pp. 730-731
  8. ↑ Guillou (1993), p. 36
  9. ↑ Mango (1976), p. 129
  10. ↑ Tunç (1978), p. 108
  11. ^ Galliazzo (1995), pp. 429-437
  12. ^ O'Connor (1993), p. 171

literature

  • Doomed by the dam. A survey of the monuments threatened by the creation of the Keban dam flood area. Elaziğ, 18-29 October 1966. Middle East Technical University, Ankara 1967, pp. 54-57 ( Faculty of Architecture. Middle East Technical University. Publication 9, ZDB -ID 263507-0 ).
  • Vittorio Galliazzo: I ponti romani. Volume 1: Esperienze preromane, storia, analisi architettonica e tipologica, ornamenti, rapporti con l'urbanistica, significato. Edizioni Canova, Treviso 1995, ISBN 88-85066-66-6 , pp. 92, 93 (Fig. 39).
  • André Guillou (Ed.): La Civiltà bizantina, oggetti e messagio. Architettura e ambiente di vita. L'Erma di Bretschneider, Rome 1993, ISBN 88-7062-801-9 , pp. 36, 62 (Fig. 24), ( Università degli Studi di Bari. Centro di Studi Bizantini. Corsi di studi 6).
  • Hansgerd Hellenkemper : Bridge: Byzantine bridge construction. In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages. Vol. 2, Stuttgart 1977-1999, pp. 730-731.
  • Friedrich Hild : The Byzantine road system in Cappadocia. Verlag der Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1977, ISBN 3-7001-0168-6 , p. 145 ( Publications of the Commission for the Tabula Imperii Byzantini 2 = Austrian Academy of Sciences. Memoranda 131).
  • Cyril Mango : Byzantine Architecture. HN Abrams, New York NY 1976, ISBN 0-8109-1004-7 , p. 129 (Fig. 138), ( History of World Architecture ).
  • Colin O'Connor: Roman Bridges. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1993, ISBN 0-521-39326-4 , p. 129 (No. E38).
  • Gülgûn Tunç: Taş Köprülerimiz. Karayolları Genel Müdürlüğü Matbaası, Ankara 1978, p. 108 ( TC Bayındırlık Bakanlığı Karayolları Genel Müdürlüğü 237).
  • John Warren: Creswell's Use of the Theory of Dating by the Acuteness of the Pointed Arches in Early Muslim Architecture. In: Muqarnas. 8, 1991, ISSN  0732-2992 , pp. 59-65.

See also