Martin M. Miles' photos with the keyword: Roman bridge

Today, Medellin is a city with around 2000 inhabitants. Roman Metellinum was founded by the consul Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius around 79 BC. In honour of its founder it received its first name, Metellinum. The Visigoths (around 570-768) and the Moors (768-1234) have also left their mark. Medellín is the birthplace of Hernán Cortés (1485-1547), the conquistador of the Aztec empire. One of Cortés' comrades-in-arms, Gonzalo de Sandoval (1497-1527), was also born in Medellín. There are various remains from the Roman period here. The Roman bridge (puente romano) over the Rio Guidana was repeatedly repaired and restored in the Middle Ages and early modern times.

In the Roman Empire, the city was known as "Emerita Augusta", the capital of the province of Lusitania. It was founded in 25 BC by Emperor Augustus as a colony for the veteran soldiers ("emeritus") of the Roman legions. The city was very important in Roman Hispania. It was endowed with all the comforts of a large Roman city and served as the capital of the Roman province of Lusitania. For centuries, until the fall of the Roman Empire, Mérida was an important economic, military, and cultural center. Following invasions from the Visigoths, Mérida remained an important city of the Visigothic Kingdom of Hispania in the 6th century. In 713, the Arabs conquered the city and devastated it. Even under Islamic rule, Mérida remained a bishop's seat until it was moved to Santiago de Compostela in 1119. In 1230 the Christian troops under Alfonso IX conquered Mérida during the Reconquista. The "Puente romano de Merida" is considered to be the longest bridge preserved from antiquity. In Roman times, the structure spanned the Guadiana River on 62 arches with a total length of 755 m. Today the bridge is 721 m long and rests on 60 arches. The bridge was constructed concurrently with the founding of the colony in the last decades of the 1st century BC. It was built on a shallow part of the river, where there is also a river island. Originally, two separate groups of arches spanned the river, connected by a wooden structure. However, parts of the original bridge were destroyed in a flood in 1603. It was then decided to connect the two groups of arches in the middle using additional arches. Since then, the bridge has run in one piece over the river. Until 1990, cars could cross the bridge.

The Roman bridge of Luco de Jiloca is located on the bed of the Pancrudo River. This bridge was part of the Roman road that connected Caesaraugusta (= Zaragoza) with Cástulo (near Jaén).

Córdoba shares its history with so many cities in Southern Spain. It was Carthaginian and Roman (from 260BC on), later it belonged to the Byzantine Empire for two decade, got looted by the Vandals, before Visigoths conquered it in 572. In 711 it was taken by the by the Umayyad army and became a provincial capital. In the 10th century, when the Caliphate of Córdoba existed, the population grew upto 500.000, at that time it was one of the largest cities in the known world. Cologne may have had 12.000 inhabitants at that time. Christs, Jews and Muslims lived here together. In 1148 the city was taken and part of the Almohad Caliphate. The "Siege of Córdoba" by the forces of Ferdinand III, King of Castile, in 1236 marked the end of the Islamic rule over the city. After Ferdinand III had taken Córdoba, the Mezquita, which was the largest mosque of the world at that time, was converted into a Christian cathedral. The "Puente Romano" built around 45 BC across the Guadalquivir river by the Romans. It has been reconstructed at various times. Most of the present structure dates from the Moorish reconstruction in the 8th century.

The "Ponte Pietra" (= "Stone Bridge") is a Roman arch bridge crossing the Adige River in Verona. The bridge was completed in 100 BC. Four arches of the bridge were blown up by German troops end of World War II, but the bridge got rebuilt in 1957 with original materials.

This is, what the small town got the name from - the "Ponte de Lima". The bridge over the river Lima is much older than the town itself. I was told, that Portugal has the most "antique bridges" of all countries in Europe - and this is one of them, even one of the really big ones, crossing the river in 16 arches. The Romans built the first bridge here around 100aC and the foundations of the bridge, we can walk over today - are still the original ones.