Alcántara Bridge

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Alcántara Bridge
Coordinates	39°43′21″N 6°53′33″W / 39.7224°N 6.8924°W / 39.7224; -6.8924
Crosses	Tagus River
Locale	Alcántara, Spain
Heritage status	Listed as cultural heritage since 1921[1]
Characteristics
Design	Roman arch bridge
Material	Stone
Total length	181.7 m (596 ft)[2]
Width	8.6 m (28 ft)[2]
Height	45 m (148 ft)[3]
Longest span	28.8 m (94 ft)[4]
No. of spans	6
Load limit	52 t (57 short tons)[5]
History
Designer	Caius Julius Lacer
Construction start	104 AD
Construction end	106 AD
Location

The Alcántara Bridge (also known as Trajan's Bridge at Alcantara) is a Roman bridge at Alcántara, in Extremadura, Spain. Alcántara is from the Arabic word al-Qantarah (القنطرة) meaning "the arch". The stone arch bridge was built over the Tagus River between 104 and 106 AD by an order of the Roman emperor Trajan in 98.^[6]

History

The Alcántara Bridge has suffered more damage from war than from the elements over the years. The

The bridge originally measured 190 m (620 ft) in length, which today is reduced to 181.7 m (596 ft).[2] The clear spans of the six arches from the right to the left riverside are 13.6 m (45 ft), 23.4 m (77 ft), 28.8 m (94 ft), 27.4 m (90 ft), 21.9 m (72 ft) and 13.8 m (45 ft).^[4]

Construction

The bridge's construction occurred in the

• 
• 
• 
  Looking south, in the background the small temple with Lacer's grave
• 
  The entrance of the temple with the crypt of the Roman engineer

See also

• List of Roman bridges
• Roman temple of Alcántara
• Alcántara Dam

References

Further reading

• Brown, David J. (1993), Bridges, New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, p. 25,
  ISBN 0-02-517455-X
• Durán Fuentes, Manuel (2004), La Construcción de Puentes Romanos en Hispania, Santiago de Compostela: Xunta de Galicia, pp. 194–200,
  ISBN 978-84-453-3937-4
• Galliazzo, Vittorio (1994), I ponti romani. Catalogo generale, vol. 2, Treviso: Edizioni Canova, pp. 353–358 (No. 754),
  ISBN 88-85066-66-6
• Graf, Bernhard (2002), Bridges that Changed the World, Munich: Prestel, pp. 20–21,
  ISBN 3-7913-2701-1
• O'Connor, Colin (1993), Roman Bridges, Cambridge University Press, pp. 109–111 (SP21),
  ISBN 0-521-39326-4

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Alcántara Bridge.

• Alcantara Bridge at Structurae
• Puente de Alcántara sobre el Tajo, en Cáceres (in Spanish)
• Video of the bridge
• Video of Alcántara