DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.748#0163
128 ARCH^OLOGICAL INSTITUTE.
was not possible without excavations, for which the first year
allowed no time.
One branch of the road which passes the street of Tombs
continues directly to the north, crossing the Satnioeis at a
point indicated upon the map of the city, Plate i. Here were
discovered considerable remains, which afford the only known
example of an ancient Greek bridge, Plate 35. The structure
is certainly the only existing instance of a work of this kind
in which the principle of the lintel, so tenaciously adhered to
previous to the age of the Diadochi, has been consistently
carried out. The fact that the Greeks seldom attempted the
execution of monumental works of engineering, such as were
so often undertaken by the Romans, made wooden bridges
much more common than those of stone, even in such impor-
tant positions as the passage between Aulis and Chalkis, where
a bridge connected the island of Euboea with the mainland.
Of these timbered constructions there remains, of course, not
a vestige. All the stone bridges occurring in Greek lands are
of vaulted form,1 and must be referred to the late epoch of
the Roman occupation, as in the instances of the triple pass-
age over the river Pamisos, between Andania, Megalopolis, and
Messene, and the single arch over the Eurotas, near Sparta.
The projecting horizontal courses of the foundations an the
road between Pylos and Methone may be of considerable age ;
but, as in every known example, the upper portion of this struct-
ure, built with wedged-shaped stones, dates from a mediaeval
restoration.
At Assos, on the other hand, the ruins show the bridge to
have maintained its original form unchanged as long as it was
1 Gell, Itinerary of Greece, etc., London, 1810, mentions two examples of small
constructions above rills with a horizontal termination, at Phlios, and near
Mycenae, on the road to Nauplia; but the former appears to have been a mere
opening in the fortifications of the town, and the latter is a formless mass of
small stones, the age of which is extremely doubtful. Neither can be spoken of
as a proper bridge.
was not possible without excavations, for which the first year
allowed no time.
One branch of the road which passes the street of Tombs
continues directly to the north, crossing the Satnioeis at a
point indicated upon the map of the city, Plate i. Here were
discovered considerable remains, which afford the only known
example of an ancient Greek bridge, Plate 35. The structure
is certainly the only existing instance of a work of this kind
in which the principle of the lintel, so tenaciously adhered to
previous to the age of the Diadochi, has been consistently
carried out. The fact that the Greeks seldom attempted the
execution of monumental works of engineering, such as were
so often undertaken by the Romans, made wooden bridges
much more common than those of stone, even in such impor-
tant positions as the passage between Aulis and Chalkis, where
a bridge connected the island of Euboea with the mainland.
Of these timbered constructions there remains, of course, not
a vestige. All the stone bridges occurring in Greek lands are
of vaulted form,1 and must be referred to the late epoch of
the Roman occupation, as in the instances of the triple pass-
age over the river Pamisos, between Andania, Megalopolis, and
Messene, and the single arch over the Eurotas, near Sparta.
The projecting horizontal courses of the foundations an the
road between Pylos and Methone may be of considerable age ;
but, as in every known example, the upper portion of this struct-
ure, built with wedged-shaped stones, dates from a mediaeval
restoration.
At Assos, on the other hand, the ruins show the bridge to
have maintained its original form unchanged as long as it was
1 Gell, Itinerary of Greece, etc., London, 1810, mentions two examples of small
constructions above rills with a horizontal termination, at Phlios, and near
Mycenae, on the road to Nauplia; but the former appears to have been a mere
opening in the fortifications of the town, and the latter is a formless mass of
small stones, the age of which is extremely doubtful. Neither can be spoken of
as a proper bridge.