OTTOMAN PONTOON BRIDGES
Journal Name:
- Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi Mimarlık Fakültesi Dergisi
Keywords (Original Language):
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Abstract (2. Language):
From the second half of the 15th century, Ottomans built pontoon bridges on
the two extremes of the Empire, Mesopotamia and the Balkans, both for military
and civil purposes. As a technological and organizational problem, these bridges
constitute illuminative examples of a building type which was actually neglected
not only by the students of this architectural tradition but also by the historians
in general.
The first reliable information on Ottoman pontoon bridges belongs to the age
of Mehmed I (1452-1481), the Conqueror, and earliest official documents concerning
military bridge-building activities deal with the campaign of Szigetvar
(1566). Those hüküms, along with some contemporaneous historical studies,
throw light on the bureaucratic practices, and logistics of Ottoman military
engineering. The grandiose task of constructing pontoon bridges in an accelerated
pace necessitated the joint efforts of local authorities, army engineers,
and the central administration in Istanbul. In a pre-modern economy that
constantly starved for labour force and building materials, such an organization
could only be achieved by a large-scale 'mobilization' of the resources of an area
extending from the Black Sea shores of present Rumania to Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Historical sources reveal that some pontoon bridges were technically important
structures. One of them, the bridge on the river Drava near Osijek was described
in detail by Sai in the late 16th century, and by Evliya Çelebi nearly one hundred
years after it was completed by the engineering corps of Süleyman the
Magnificent's army. Though pontoon bridges were seldom praised as architectural
masterpieces, for a complete understanding of 'non-monumental' Ottoman
architecture, they have to be studied analytically, from the etymological problem
posed by their primary component, tombaz (a pontoon), to the technological
aspects of their construction processes.
Ottoman archival material, which forms the basis of this study, offers an opportunity
to be used for this purpose.
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