The Karamagara Bridge ( tr, Karamağara Köprüsü, "Bridge of the Black Cave") is a

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

or late Roman bridge in the

ancient Ancient history is a time period from the beginning of writing and recorded human history to as far as late antiquity. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the Sumerian cuneiform script. Ancient history cov ...

region of

Cappadocia Cappadocia or Capadocia (; tr, Kapadokya), is a historical region in Central Anatolia, Turkey. It largely is in the provinces Nevşehir, Kayseri, Aksaray, Kırşehir, Sivas and Niğde. According to Herodotus, in the time of the Ionian Re ...

in eastern

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...

, and possibly the earliest known

pointed arch A pointed arch, ogival arch, or Gothic arch is an arch with a pointed crown, whose two curving sides meet at a relatively sharp angle at the top of the arch. This architectural element was particularly important in Gothic architecture. The earlie ...

bridge. The bridge, along with much of the Arapgir Çayı valley, has been submerged since the completion of the

Keban Dam The Keban Dam ( tr, Keban Barajı) is a hydroelectric dam on the Euphrates, located in the Elazığ Province of Turkey. The dam is the first and uppermost of several large-scale dams to be built on the Euphrates by Turkey. Although the Keban Dam ...

in 1975, as a result of which the water level in the Euphrates valley and some of its upstream tributaries dramatically rose.

Location and situation

The single arch of 17 m spans between the cliffs of the rocky gorge of the Arapgir Çayı, an affluent of the

Euphrates The Euphrates () is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of Western Asia. Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia ( ''the land between the rivers''). Originating in Turkey, the Eup ...

. The structure belonged to the Roman road to Melitene, which was cut into the rock near the bridge at both sides of the river. Its name ''Karamağara'' ("black cave") probably derives from an artificially widened cavern on the southern bank which was carved into the darkish rock 75 m above the structure and served for protection of the crossing point. The bridge was quite frequently mentioned by early European travellers. As with other monuments in the region, the site was examined by the Middle East Technical University of Ankara prior to its flooding. Further downstream, at the village of Bahadın, the remains of another now submerged Roman bridge may indicate the existence of an older crossing point.

Pointed arch

The pointed arch rib was built without mortar between the

voussoir A voussoir () is a wedge-shaped element, typically a stone, which is used in building an arch or vault. Although each unit in an arch or vault is a voussoir, two units are of distinct functional importance: the keystone and the springer. The ...

s. On its eastern, downstream side a nearly intact Christian inscription in

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

runs along most of its length, citing almost verbatim

Psalm The Book of Psalms ( or ; he, תְּהִלִּים, , lit. "praises"), also known as the Psalms, or the Psalter, is the first book of the ("Writings"), the third section of the Tanakh, and a book of the Old Testament. The title is derived f ...

121, verse 8 of the

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts ...

. The text reads: A paleographic analysis of the Greek letter forms yields a 5th- or 6th-century AD construction date for the bridge. With the bulk of Roman masonry bridges resting on semi-circular arches, or, to a lesser extent, on segmental arches, the Karamagara Bridge represents an equally rare and early instance of the use of pointed arches not only in

late antique Late antiquity is the time of transition from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages, generally spanning the 3rd–7th century in Europe and adjacent areas bordering the Mediterranean Basin. The popularization of this periodization in English has ...

bridge building, but also in the history of architecture overall. Along with other late Roman and

Sassanian The Sasanian () or Sassanid Empire, officially known as the Empire of Iranians (, ) and also referred to by historians as the Neo-Persian Empire, was the last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th-8th centuries AD. Named ...

examples, mostly evidenced in early church building in Syria and

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the ...

, the bridge proves the pre- Islamic origin of the pointed arch in

Near Eastern The ''Near East''; he, המזרח הקרוב; arc, ܕܢܚܐ ܩܪܒ; fa, خاور نزدیک, Xāvar-e nazdik; tr, Yakın Doğu is a geographical term which roughly encompasses a transcontinental region in Western Asia, that was once the hist ...

architecture, which the Muslim conquerors subsequently adopted and built on. The stones containing the Greek inscriptions were removed from the bridge and brought to the Elazığ Museum in 1972.

References

Sources

* * * * * * * *

Location and situation

Pointed arch

See also

References

Sources

Further reading