Trajan's Bridge

This article covers the former Roman bridge over the Danube. A modern bridge is the Trajan's Bridge (Timișoara) in Romania.

Coordinates: 44 ° 37 ′ 7 ″  N , 22 ° 40 ′ 3 ″  E

Trajan's Bridge
The remains of the bridge pillar on the Romanian bank, at Drobeta Turnu Severin in August 2009. A concrete wall was built around the ruins to protect them from the rising level of the Danube when the Iron Gate 2 power plant was built.
Official name	Ponte di Apollodoro (Romanian: Podul lui Traian; Serbian: Трајанов мост / Trajanov most)
use	Road bridge
Convicted	Danube
place	Drobeta Turnu Severin , Romania / Kladovo , Serbia
overall length	1135 m
width	12 m
height	19 m
completion	between 103 and 105 AD
location

The Trajansbrücke or Traiansbrücke , also known as the Roman Bridge at Drobeta Turnu Severin or Apollodorus Bridge over the Danube , was completed in 105 AD under the Roman Emperor Trajan and was the first permanent bridge over the lower Danube . With a total length of over 1.1  kilometers , it was the longest built bridge in the world at the time and, after being destroyed for around 165 years, remained that way for over a millennium.

location

It connected the Roman town of Zanes with its Roman fortifications Diana and Pontes on the south side of the Danube near today's Serbian village Kostol with the Roman military camp Drobeta on the north side of the Danube in today's Romanian city ​​of Drobeta Turnu Severin . On both banks there are still remnants of the brick pillars, which were protected by concrete walls and dams from the water of the Danube, which has risen slightly due to the dams of the Eisernes Tor 2 power plant .

history

The Trajan's Bridge was built between AD 103 and 105 by Roman troops to provide logistical support for the second campaign against the Dacians organized by Emperor Trajan . One of the most famous architects of his time, Apollodorus of Damascus , was commissioned to plan it. The wooden arch construction was destroyed under Aurelian after the Romans withdrew from Dacia , around 270 AD.

The existence of the bridge was confirmed and localized by the discovery of the pillars on both banks and the remains of the piers in the water. There is also a picture of the bridge on the Trajan Column in Rome . Accordingly, it was a wooden half-timbered construction resting on stone pillars with unusually flat segmental arches , most comparable to the Moselle bridge in Trier .

The remains of the original 20 bridge piers have been preserved under water to this day. However, repeated archaeological investigations over the past seventy years have shown that the historical building fabric continues to dwindle: while sixteen pillars could still be found in 1932, there were twelve in 1982 and only eight in 2003.

• Development of the bridge on the Trajan Column
• 

  Depiction of Roman legionaries building the Trajan's Bridge on the Trajan's Column

• 

  View of the completed bridge; in the foreground Emperor Trajan at a sacrificial ceremony

Modern reconstruction

and display information about the image

Reconstruction of the bridge by the engineer E. Duperrex in 1907

See also

• List of Roman bridges
• List of bridges across the Danube

literature

• Radu Bancila, Dragos Teodorescu: The Roman bridges on the lower course of the Danube. In: K. Zilch, G. Albrecht, A. Swaczyna and others: Design, construction and maintenance of bridges in the Danube region. 3rd International Danube Bridge Conference, October 29-30, Regensburg 1998, pp. 401-409.
• Vittorio Galliazzo: I ponti romani. Catalogo generale. Volume 2, Edizioni Canova, Treviso 1994, ISBN 88-85066-66-6 , pp. 320-324, no. 646.
• Francis E. Griggs: Trajan's Bridge: The World's First Long-Span Wooden Bridge. In: Civil Engineering Practice. Volume 22, No. 1 2007, pp. 19-50, ISSN  0886-9685
• Sima Gušić: Traian's Bridge. A Contribution towards its Reconstruction. In: Petar Petrović: Roman Limes on the Middle and Lower Danube. (= Cahiers des Portes de Fer. Volume 2). Belgrade, 1996, pp. 259-261.
• Colin O'Connor: Roman Bridges. Cambridge University Press, 1993, ISBN 0-521-39326-4 , pp. 142-145 (No. T13), 171.
• Marko Serban: Trajan's Bridge over the Danube. In: The International Journal of Nautical Archeology. Volume 38, No. 2, 2009, pp. 331-342.
• D. Tudor: Le pont de Trajan à Drobeta-Turnu Severin. In: Les ponts romains du Bas-Danube. (= Bibliotheca Historica Romaniae Études. Volume 51). Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, Bucharest, 1974, S, pp. 47-134.
• D. Tudor: Le pont de Constantin le Grand à Celei. In: Les ponts romains du Bas-Danube. (= Bibliotheca Historica Romaniae Études. Volume 51). Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, Bucharest, 1974, S, pp. 135-166.
• Roger B. Ulrich: Roman Woodworking. Yale University Press, ISBN 0-300-10341-7 , 2007, pp. 104-107.
• Dejan Vučković, Dragan Mihajlović, Gordana Karović: Trajan's Bridge on the Danube. The Current Results of Underwater Archaeological Research. In: Istros. No. 14, 2007, pp. 119-130.

Web links

Commons : Trajan's Bridge  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Trajan's Bridge. In: Structurae
• Romans Rise from the Waters - Excavations
• Trajan's Bridge - short article

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Trajan's Bridge. In: Structurae
2. ↑ Romans Rise from the Waters ( Memento of the original from December 5, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.