Bridge at Oinoanda

36.82530555555629.562055555556Koordinaten: 36 ° 49 ' 31 " N, 29 ° 33' 43 " O

The Bridge at Oinoanda or bridge of Kemerarası is an Ottoman arch bridge over the river Xanthos near the ancient city Oinoanda in Lycia (Turkey). It is located on or near the site of a former Roman building, whose existence became known in the 1990s by the discovery of an ancient bridge inscription.

Roman Bridge

Inscription stone

The Roman inscription stone was discovered in the ancient excavation site in Kemerarası at the foot of the hill town of Oinoanda ( Urluca ). The site has already acted in antiquity as transport hub for the upper Xanthos. In parallel to the modern road bridge is also located here, the Ottoman bridge. The one with the face up and corpus of largely remained intact limestone block is 130 cm high, 64 cm wide and 42 cm thick. On the right side of the inscription a large-scale piece of stone is chipped, the text supplements requires. Further interpretation difficulties arise from a number of spelling errors, their nature suggests that the mason was probably Greek native speakers.

Temporal classification

The inscription, and thus the establishment of the Roman bridge can be dated to the reign of the Lycian governor Eprius Marcellus, who had been shown at the death of the Emperor Claudius 54 AD in office. After matching the text with the known chronology Milner narrows the construction date to the year 50 AD and sees a connection with Roman road activities that seven years earlier had their beginning with the annexation of Lycia and operated by Marcellus ' predecessor Quintus Vernanius. Because in addition to the construction of a military road network, which was aimed at rapid shift of troops, even the razing of Lycian city and fortress walls is busy for this time, the Roman bridge of Oinoanda is perhaps seen in the context of a broad Roman Pazifizierungskampagne in the province.

Inscription text

Transcription ( with additions):

( Revised and expanded ) Translation: