Limyra Bridge

Hikayemiz

The Bridge near Limyra is a late Roman bridge in Lycia, in modern south-west Turkey, and one of the oldest segmented arch bridges in the world. Located near the ancient city of Limyra, it is the largest civil engineering structure of antiquity in the region, spanning the Alakır Çayı river over a length of 360m on 26 segmental arches. These arches, with a span-to-rise ratio of 5.3:1, give the bridge an unusually flat profile, and were unsurpassed as an architectural achievement until the late Middle Ages. Today, the structure is largely buried by river sediments and surrounded by greenhouses. Despite its unique features, the bridge remains relatively unknown, and only in the 1970s did researchers from the Istanbul branch of the German Archaeological Institute carry out field examinations on the site.Field examinationsNo information on the bridge survives from ancient sources. The first descriptions appear in European travellers' accounts from the 19th century. The British archaeologist Charles Fellows was the first to explore the region of Lycia, and visited the bridge in May 1840. Fellows, as well as T.A.B. Spratt and Edward Forbes, who visited the site two years later, describe it as having 25 arches. In 1882, an Austrian expedition, including Otto Benndorf, interpreted the structure as part of an ancient road that connected Limyra with the city of Attaleia (modern Antalya) to the east. However, this mission failed to produce any plans or sketches of the site.