Taşköprü (Adana)
| Taşköprü | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Coordinates | 36°59′10″N 35°20′07″E / 36.986111°N 35.335278°ECoordinates: 36°59′10″N 35°20′07″E / 36.986111°N 35.335278°E |
| Crosses | Seyhan River |
| Locale | Adana, Turkey |
| Official name | Taşköprü |
| Characteristics | |
| Design | arch bridge |
| Material | tufa, marble, spolia |
| Total length | 310 m |
| Width | 11.4m |
| No. of spans | originally 21 arches |
| History | |
| Construction end | 120–135 AD? |
| Statistics | |
| Daily traffic | pedestrians (previously also vehicles, until 2007) |
Taşköprü (English: Stone Bridge) is a Roman bridge spanning the Seyhan River in Adana that was probably built in the first half of the second century AD. The bridge was a key link in ancient trade routes from the Mediterranean Sea to Anatolia and Persia. Until its closure in 2007, it was one of the oldest bridges in the world open to motorized vehicles. Since 2007 it has only carried foot traffic, and now hosts social and cultural events.
Among the names used for the bridge during its history are the Saros Bridge, the Bridge of Justinian, the al-Walid Bridge and Taşköprü ("Stone Bridge" in Turkish).
Taşköprü carries traces of additions and restorations by several civilizations. The Hittite king Hattusili I is reported to have built a bridge in Adana en route to a military campaign in Syria, although it is not clear whether this was Adana's first bridge across the Seyhan River (then known as the Sarus).
Victor Langlois, who visited Adana in 1852-1853, attributes the current bridge to the Emperor Hadrian, who ruled from 117 to 138 AD and traveled through Anatolia from 120 to 135 AD, commissioning buildings in many places. Langlois reported that the bridge had borne an inscription with Hadrian's name until about twenty years before his visit.
Some accounts trace the construction to a late 4th-century Roman architect named Auxentius, who also built a bridge in Rome in 384 AD. This attribution is based on an inscription in Greek that served for a while as the altar of Adana's Greek church and is now in the Adana Archeological Museum collection of stone carvings. The 12-line inscription is written on a slab 122 cm high, 93 cm wide and 12 cm thick. However, a full reading appears to link this inscription to an aqueduct feeding waterwheels and not to the construction of the bridge.
The historian Procopius of Caesarea records in the Buildings of Justinian, written in about 557 AD, that Justinian I, who ruled 527–565, ordered the rebuilding of the bridge:
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