Bridge at Nimreh
Encyclopedia
The Bridge at Nimreh is a Roman bridge
in the vicinity of Shahba
(ancient
Philippopolis), Syria
, dating to the 3rd or 4th century AD. Its transversal arch
construction derives from old building traditions of the Hauran
region and is arguably unique in Roman bridge building.
ca. 80 km southeast from Damascus
in the transitional zone between agricultural land and the desert. Due to fertile soils and sufficient rainfalls, the area yielded in Roman times particularly high returns, which could be transported on the extensive Roman road
network. The Hauran lay at the junction of several long distance trade routes: the inland trade route between Petra
, Damascus and Aleppo
went right through the main emporium
Bostra, while the trans-Arabian caravan route and the road to Palmyra
, the later Strata Diocletiana
, touched the north respectively south of the region.
After the annexation by emperor
Trajan
in 106 AD, the infrastructure of the newly established Provincia Arabia
was greatly expanded by the construction of Roman forts
and military roads to ward off nomadic incursions; in Bostra the Legio III Cyrenaica
was stationed. The rugged terrain, with many wadis crisscrossing it, made necessary the construction of solid bridges, another two of which have survived to this day: the Gemarrin Bridge
and the Kharaba Bridge
.
The vault
was made of three parallel, transversal arches standing at intervals of 1.20 m; the arches were built of 60 cm long, 30 cm wide and just as high ashlar
, while the spaces in between are covered with longish basalt
blocks. This design principle – transversal arches with lintel
s – seems to be unique among Roman bridges. It also appears in the Hauran in roof constructions of late antique
basilicas, and the early Christian
church in Nimreh, indicating a construction date in the 3rd or 4th century AD. Possibly, the bridge was built in the 3rd century AD, when the region prospered, culminating in a large building programm which emperor Philippus Arabs
(r. 244-249 AD) initiated for his home town Shahba, then Philippopolis. The practice of using transversal arches for vaulting large chambers was continued in the Hauran until the early 20th century.
Presumably, the bridge was built directly onto the solid stone. Its almost unadorned masonry walls consist of rectangular, roughly smoothed basalt blocks of varying size without mortar
(opus quasi-quadratum). Since Roman bridges rarely featured basalt, its use is undoubtedly due to the availability of the material in situ. The spandrel
walls on both sides are broken up, revealing the interior filling of stone, sand and earth. The pavement, parts of which are well preserved, consists of large, smoothed basalt stones.
Roman bridge
Roman bridges, built by ancient Romans, were the first large and lasting bridges built. Roman bridges were built with stone and had the arch as its basic structure....
in the vicinity of Shahba
Shahba
Shahba , known in Late Antiquity as Philippopolis, is a city located 87 km south of Damascus in the Jabal el Druze in As-Suwayda Governorate of Syria, but formerly in the Roman province of Arabia Petraea.-Roman history:...
(ancient
Ancient history
Ancient history is the study of the written past from the beginning of recorded human history to the Early Middle Ages. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, with Cuneiform script, the oldest discovered form of coherent writing, from the protoliterate period around the 30th century BC...
Philippopolis), Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
, dating to the 3rd or 4th century AD. Its transversal arch
Arch
An arch is a structure that spans a space and supports a load. Arches appeared as early as the 2nd millennium BC in Mesopotamian brick architecture and their systematic use started with the Ancient Romans who were the first to apply the technique to a wide range of structures.-Technical aspects:The...
construction derives from old building traditions of the Hauran
Hauran
Hauran, , also spelled Hawran or Houran, is a volcanic plateau, a geographic area and a people located in southwestern Syria and extending into the northwestern corner of Jordan. It gets its name from the Aramaic Hawran, meaning "cave land." In geographic and geomorphic terms, its boundaries...
region and is arguably unique in Roman bridge building.
Road network of the Hauran
The Bridge at Nimreh is located in the Hauran (ancient name: Auranitis), a mountainous volcanic regionVolcán
Volcán is a town in the Chiriquí province of Panama.El Hato del Volcán is a town in the Bugaba District, Chiriqui Province, Republica de Panamá. It sits on an old lava flow from Volcan Baru, the highest point in Panama at 3,475 metres...
ca. 80 km southeast from Damascus
Damascus
Damascus , commonly known in Syria as Al Sham , and as the City of Jasmine , is the capital and the second largest city of Syria after Aleppo, both are part of the country's 14 governorates. In addition to being one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Damascus is a major...
in the transitional zone between agricultural land and the desert. Due to fertile soils and sufficient rainfalls, the area yielded in Roman times particularly high returns, which could be transported on the extensive Roman road
Roman road
The Roman roads were a vital part of the development of the Roman state, from about 500 BC through the expansion during the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire. Roman roads enabled the Romans to move armies and trade goods and to communicate. The Roman road system spanned more than 400,000 km...
network. The Hauran lay at the junction of several long distance trade routes: the inland trade route between Petra
Petra
Petra is a historical and archaeological city in the Jordanian governorate of Ma'an that is famous for its rock cut architecture and water conduits system. Established sometime around the 6th century BC as the capital city of the Nabataeans, it is a symbol of Jordan as well as its most visited...
, Damascus and Aleppo
Aleppo
Aleppo is the largest city in Syria and the capital of Aleppo Governorate, the most populous Syrian governorate. With an official population of 2,301,570 , expanding to over 2.5 million in the metropolitan area, it is also one of the largest cities in the Levant...
went right through the main emporium
Emporia (ancient Greece)
Emporia, sing emporion were places which the traders of one nation had reserved to their business interests within the territory of another nation. Famous emporia include Sais where Solon went to acquire the knowledge of Egypt, Elim where Hatshepsut kept her Red Sea fleet...
Bostra, while the trans-Arabian caravan route and the road to Palmyra
Palmyra
Palmyra was an ancient city in Syria. In the age of antiquity, it was an important city of central Syria, located in an oasis 215 km northeast of Damascus and 180 km southwest of the Euphrates at Deir ez-Zor. It had long been a vital caravan city for travellers crossing the Syrian desert...
, the later Strata Diocletiana
Strata Diocletiana
The Strata Diocletiana was a fortified road that ran along the eastern desert border, the limes Arabicus, of the Roman Empire. As its name suggests, it was constructed under Emperor Diocletian as part of a wide-ranging fortification drive in the later Roman Empire...
, touched the north respectively south of the region.
After the annexation by emperor
Roman Emperor
The Roman emperor was the ruler of the Roman State during the imperial period . The Romans had no single term for the office although at any given time, a given title was associated with the emperor...
Trajan
Trajan
Trajan , was Roman Emperor from 98 to 117 AD. Born into a non-patrician family in the province of Hispania Baetica, in Spain Trajan rose to prominence during the reign of emperor Domitian. Serving as a legatus legionis in Hispania Tarraconensis, in Spain, in 89 Trajan supported the emperor against...
in 106 AD, the infrastructure of the newly established Provincia Arabia
Arabia Petraea
Arabia Petraea, also called Provincia Arabia or simply Arabia, was a frontier province of the Roman Empire beginning in the 2nd century; it consisted of the former Nabataean kingdom in modern Jordan, southern modern Syria, the Sinai Peninsula and northwestern Saudi Arabia. Its capital was Petra...
was greatly expanded by the construction of Roman forts
Castra
The Latin word castra, with its singular castrum, was used by the ancient Romans to mean buildings or plots of land reserved to or constructed for use as a military defensive position. The word appears in both Oscan and Umbrian as well as in Latin. It may have descended from Indo-European to Italic...
and military roads to ward off nomadic incursions; in Bostra the Legio III Cyrenaica
Legio III Cyrenaica
Legio tertia Cyrenaica was a Roman legion probably levied by Mark Antony around 36 BC, when he was governor of Cyrenaica. There are still records of the legion in Syria in the beginning of the 5th century. The legion symbol is unknown.- History :Legion III Cyrenaica is one of the longest living...
was stationed. The rugged terrain, with many wadis crisscrossing it, made necessary the construction of solid bridges, another two of which have survived to this day: the Gemarrin Bridge
Gemarrin Bridge
The Bridge of Gemarrin is a Roman bridge in the vicinity of the ancient city of Bosra, southern Syria. The bridge, which belonged to the Roman road to Soada Dionysias , crossed the Wadi Zeidi some kilometers north of Bosra....
and the Kharaba Bridge
Kharaba Bridge
The Kharaba Bridge is a Roman bridge in the fertile Hauran region, Syria, close to the ancient city of Bosra.The bridge crosses the Wadi Zeidi, a tributary of the Yarmuk, 3.5 km northwest of Bosra. It features three semi-circular arches, each 3.8 m clear, 2.4 m wide piers and a...
.
Construction
The bridge is situated 10 km southeast from Shahba, close to the modern road at the foot of the mountain village Nimreh, which was known in the Onomastikon of Eusebius by the name Namara and regarded as an important place (vicus grandis). Here, the bridge crosses the Wadi al-Liwa almost right-angled, making a small bend of 120° at its western end; a slightly elevated causeway continues for about 100 m before trailing off. The bridge is 25 m long, with the eastern section covering the larger part (15 m). Interestingly, its width of 4.52 m corresponds exactly to that of the Kharaba Bridge. The span of its single arch is 6.73 m, with a rise of 3.10 m, resulting in a slightly less pronounced profile (ca. 160°) than the typical Roman semi-circular arch (180°); the overall height from the riverbed to the apex of the arch is reported as 3.60 m.The vault
Vault (architecture)
A Vault is an architectural term for an arched form used to provide a space with a ceiling or roof. The parts of a vault exert lateral thrust that require a counter resistance. When vaults are built underground, the ground gives all the resistance required...
was made of three parallel, transversal arches standing at intervals of 1.20 m; the arches were built of 60 cm long, 30 cm wide and just as high ashlar
Ashlar
Ashlar is prepared stone work of any type of stone. Masonry using such stones laid in parallel courses is known as ashlar masonry, whereas masonry using irregularly shaped stones is known as rubble masonry. Ashlar blocks are rectangular cuboid blocks that are masonry sculpted to have square edges...
, while the spaces in between are covered with longish basalt
Basalt
Basalt is a common extrusive volcanic rock. It is usually grey to black and fine-grained due to rapid cooling of lava at the surface of a planet. It may be porphyritic containing larger crystals in a fine matrix, or vesicular, or frothy scoria. Unweathered basalt is black or grey...
blocks. This design principle – transversal arches with lintel
Lintel (architecture)
A lintel can be a load-bearing building component, a decorative architectural element, or a combined ornamented structural item. It is often found over portals, doors, and windows.-Structural uses:...
s – seems to be unique among Roman bridges. It also appears in the Hauran in roof constructions of late antique
Late Antiquity
Late Antiquity is a periodization used by historians to describe the time of transition from Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages, in both mainland Europe and the Mediterranean world. Precise boundaries for the period are a matter of debate, but noted historian of the period Peter Brown proposed...
basilicas, and the early Christian
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
church in Nimreh, indicating a construction date in the 3rd or 4th century AD. Possibly, the bridge was built in the 3rd century AD, when the region prospered, culminating in a large building programm which emperor Philippus Arabs
Philip the Arab
Philip the Arab , also known as Philip or Philippus Arabs, was Roman Emperor from 244 to 249. He came from Syria, and rose to become a major figure in the Roman Empire. He achieved power after the death of Gordian III, quickly negotiating peace with the Sassanid Empire...
(r. 244-249 AD) initiated for his home town Shahba, then Philippopolis. The practice of using transversal arches for vaulting large chambers was continued in the Hauran until the early 20th century.
Presumably, the bridge was built directly onto the solid stone. Its almost unadorned masonry walls consist of rectangular, roughly smoothed basalt blocks of varying size without mortar
Mortar (masonry)
Mortar is a workable paste used to bind construction blocks together and fill the gaps between them. The blocks may be stone, brick, cinder blocks, etc. Mortar becomes hard when it sets, resulting in a rigid aggregate structure. Modern mortars are typically made from a mixture of sand, a binder...
(opus quasi-quadratum). Since Roman bridges rarely featured basalt, its use is undoubtedly due to the availability of the material in situ. The spandrel
Spandrel
A spandrel, less often spandril or splaundrel, is the space between two arches or between an arch and a rectangular enclosure....
walls on both sides are broken up, revealing the interior filling of stone, sand and earth. The pavement, parts of which are well preserved, consists of large, smoothed basalt stones.