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Roman bridge

Roman bridge

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For a list of all known Roman bridges, see List of Roman bridges
For the railway station in Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom, bordered by England to its east, and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It is also an elective region of the European Union...

, see Roman Bridge railway station
Roman Bridge railway station
Roman Bridge railway station is a request stop passenger station in the Lledr Valley on the Conwy Valley Line from Llandudno Junction to Blaenau Ffestiniog, which is operated by Arriva Trains Wales...



Roman bridges, built by ancient Romans
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea, it became one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

, were the first large and lasting bridges built.

Roman bridges were built with stone and had the arch
Arch
An arch is a structure that spans a space while supporting weight . 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.-History:Arches...

 as its basic structure, see arch bridge
Arch bridge
An arch bridge is a bridge with abutments at each end shaped as a curved arch. Arch bridges work by transferring the weight of the bridge and its loads partially into a horizontal thrust restrained by the abutments at either side...

. Most utilized concrete as well; which the Romans were the first to use for bridges.

Built in 142 BC
142 BC
-Judea:* Simon Maccabaeus succeeds his brother Jonathan as High Priest of Judea until 135 BC....

, the Pons Aemilius
Pons Aemilius
The Pons Aemilius , today called Ponte Rotto, is the oldest Roman stone bridge in Rome, Italy. Preceded by a wooden version, it was rebuilt in stone in the 2nd century BC...

, later named Ponte Rotto (broken bridge) is the oldest Roman stone bridge in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated municipality , with over 2.7 million residents in , while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 3.46 million. The metropolitan area of Rome is estimated by OECD to have a population of 3.7 million...

, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...

.

The biggest Roman bridge was Trajan's bridge
Trajan's bridge
Trajan's Bridge or Bridge of Apollodorus over the Danube was a Roman bridge , the first to be built over the lower Danube. For more than a thousand years, it was the longest arch bridge in the world to have been built, in terms of both total and span length...

 over the lower Danube
Danube
The Danube is the longest river in the European Union and Europe's second longest river after the Volga.The river originates in the Black Forest in Germany as the much smaller Brigach and Breg rivers which join at the German town Donaueschingen, after which it is known as the Danube and flows...

, constructed by Apollodorus of Damascus
Apollodorus of Damascus
Apollodorus of Damascus was a Syrian or Greek engineer, architect, designer and sculptor who flourished during the 2nd century AD. He was born in Damascus, Syria, and was a favourite of Trajan, for whom he constructed Trajan's Bridge over the Danube for the 105-106 campaign in Dacia...

, which remained for over a millennium the longest bridge to have been built both in terms of overall and span length. They were most of the time at least 2 meters above the body of water.

An example of temporary military bridge construction are the two Caesar's Rhine bridges
Caesar's Rhine bridges
Caesar's Bridge across the Rhine, the first two bridges to cross the Rhine River, were built by Julius Caesar and his legionaries during the Gallic War in 55 BC and 53 BC, respectively...

.

Typical characteristics

  • Many are more than 5 meters wide
  • Most of them slope slightly
  • Many have rustic work
  • The stonework has alternating stretcher and header courses ; i.e. one layer of rectangular stones is laid lengthwise, and the next layer has the ends facing outwards
  • Stones linked with dovetail joints or metal bars
  • Indents in the stones for gripping tools to hold onto

(Source Traianus - An endeavour to identify Roman Bridges built in former Hispania
Hispania
Hispania was the name given by the Romans to the whole of the Iberian Peninsula . When Rome was a republic, Hispania was divided into two provinces: Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior...

)

Arch shapes


Early Roman arch bridges, influenced by the ancient notion of the ideal form of the circle, often describe a full circle, with the stone arch continuing underground. A typical example is the Pons Fabricius
Pons Fabricius
The Pons Fabricius or Ponte dei Quattro Capi, is the oldest Roman bridge in Rome, Italy, still existing in its original state. Built in 62 BC, it spans half of the Tiber River, from the Campus Martius on the east side to Tiber Island in the middle...

 in Rome. Later, Roman masonry bridges rested mostly on semi-circular arches
Arch
An arch is a structure that spans a space while supporting weight . 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.-History:Arches...

, or, to a lesser extent, on segmental arches
Arch
An arch is a structure that spans a space while supporting weight . 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.-History:Arches...

. For the later design, which shows an early, local concentration in north-eastern Italy, but can be found scattered throughout the whole empire, the Limyra Bridge
Limyra Bridge
The Limyra Bridge is a late Roman bridge in Lycia, in modern south-west Turkey, and one of the oldest segmented arch bridges in the world. The long bridge is located near the ancient city of Limyra, and spans the Alakır Çayı river over 26 segmental arches...

, the Alconétar Bridge
Alconétar Bridge
The Alconétar bridge was a Roman bridge on the river Tagus in Spain. It was one of the oldest stone segmental arch bridges in the world, predating other examples such as the Zhaozhou Bridge in China and Ponte Vecchio in Italy...

 and the Ponte San Lorenzo
Ponte San Lorenzo
The Ponte San Lorenzo is a Roman segmental arch bridge over the river Bacchiglione in Padua, Italy. Constructed between 47 and 30 BC, it is one of the very earliest segmental arched bridges in the world...

 are prime examples. In addition, a number of other arch form make rare appearances, in some cases of which later deformations cannot be ruled out though. The late antique
Late Antiquity
Late Antiquity is a periodization used by historians to describe the transitional centuries 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...

 Karamagara Bridge
Karamagara Bridge
The Karamagara Bridge is a late Roman bridge in the ancient region of Cappadocia in eastern Turkey, and possibly the earliest known pointed arch bridge.- Location and situation:...

 represents an early example for the use of pointed arches.

See also

  • Arch bridge
    Arch bridge
    An arch bridge is a bridge with abutments at each end shaped as a curved arch. Arch bridges work by transferring the weight of the bridge and its loads partially into a horizontal thrust restrained by the abutments at either side...

  • Bridges in city of Rome
  • Roman architecture
    Roman architecture
    The architecture of Ancient Rome at first adopted the external Greek architecture for their own purposes, which were so different from Greek buildings as to create a new architectural style. The two styles are often considered one body of classical architecture...

  • Roman engineering
    Roman engineering
    Romans are generally famous for their advanced engineering accomplishments, although some of their own inventions were improvements on older ideas, concepts and inventions. Technology for bringing running water into cities was developed in the east, but transformed by the Romans into a technology...

  • Roman technology
    Roman technology
    Roman technology is the engineering practice which supported Roman civilization and made the expansion of Roman commerce and Roman military possible over nearly a thousand years....


External links