04 March 2011

Roman bridge in Iraq

"Roman bridge, Eski Mosul, with policeman on the right. Cat. Stein LHAS Photo 23/1 (38).  
Photo by the Hungarian-British archaeologist Aurel Stein reconstructing the route of Alexander the Great in Persia, 1930s.
First publication: the Aurel Stein site of the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences prepared by us, April 2008."

From the ever-interesting Poemas del rio Wang, which has a second photo (?of the same bridge).  I presume there was some sort of ramp structure or additional arches, and that the working bridge would have looked something like this one:
I would also assume that the waterway was more formidable in Roman times (or, perhaps more likely, that the flow is seasonal).

The Iraqi bridge is very cool, but I presume it is probably long gone now.

4 comments:

  1. StudiolumMarch 4, 2011 at 1:40 PM

    Thank you for the reference, Stan! Yes, I also think it had this kind of ramp, with the difference that in Mesopotamia/Iraq, where stone must have been an expensive commodity, only the arch was made of stone, and the ramp of earth or clay, that’s why it has gone while the bridge survived until the 1930s when Aurel Stein took this photo. (I do not know anything about its present conditions: it may well have gone.)

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousMarch 4, 2011 at 5:03 PM

    It looks a lot like the Ottoman bridge at Mostar.http://ottomanblog.wordpress.com/2010/10/02/top-10-greatest-ottoman-artists-of-all-time/the-reconstructed-old-bridge-of-mostar-over-the-river-neretva/

    ReplyDelete
  3. MinnesotastanMarch 4, 2011 at 6:43 PM

    Wow - that's a beautiful bridge.

    ReplyDelete
  4. StudiolumMarch 5, 2011 at 10:21 AM

    It is regarded as a historical and architectonic model for Nobel-winner Ivo Andrić’s Bridge over the Drina river.

    ReplyDelete