Bent Bridge

About

The Bent Bridge or Curved Bridge (Eğri Köprü) is a stone arch bridge over the Kızılırmak River 3 km (1.9 mi) southeast of the center of Sivas in Central Anatolia, Turkey. The bridge lies in the city's Kardeşler ward, on the road from Sivas to Malatya and onward to Syria and Mesopotamia. Historian Thomas Alexander Sinclair says the bridge was originally built in medieval times, probably by the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum and extensively rebuilt in the late-Ottoman period. The Bent Bridge consists of 18 stone arches and is 179.60 m (589.2 ft) long and 4.55 m (14.9 ft) wide. Traveling from Sivas, the bridge rises from the northern bank of the river and runs almost easterly for 60 m (200 ft) across the first six arches. At that point the deck turns 45 degrees to descend southeast for 120 m (390 ft) across the remaining 12 arches, the gradient over the final three arches being much steeper. Sinclair relates that one reason to build a bridge with a convex angle towards the river flow may have been to resist the pressure of ice in winter. All the arches are pointed and most are the same width, except for three especially wide ones. The upstream piers all have stone cutwaters. The parapet has a thick moulding on the outside and is built with holes to allow water to flow off the roadway. Sinclair detects spolia (reused stonework) from the Classical and Anatolian Seljuk periods in t

Adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). Photography via Wikimedia Commons.