Malabadi Bridge

Overview

In the 1600s, the traveler Evliya Çelebi watched guests sit in the windows of a bridge over the Batman River. Some chatted with people across the arch, while others dropped nets and fishing lines into the water below. That bridge was the Malabadi Bridge, and its great pointed arch still leaps over the river near Silvan.

The Artuqid rulers of Mardin built it in the 12th century. When the French scholar Albert Gabriel saw it, he wrote that the dome of Hagia Sophia would fit under its arch. So come for the span, then climb the ramp and look for the rooms hidden inside the bridge.

Malabadi Bridge, One Great Stone Arch

The Malabadi Bridge crosses the Batman River near the village of Malabadi, in the Silvan district of Diyarbakır province. The river here also forms the border with Batman province. Diyarbakır lies about 104 km (65 miles) to the west, on the old road toward Bitlis and Van.

The bridge is about 150 meters (490 feet) long and 7 meters (23 feet) wide. Its main arch spans 38.6 meters (127 feet) and rises 19 meters (62 feet) above low water. Turkish sources call it the widest arch of any stone bridge in Turkey and the Near East. In Adana, see Taşköprü, the Roman bridge over the Seyhan. Since 2016 it has been on the UNESCO tentative list.

The Artuqid Bridge Builders

Building the Malabadi Bridge

An older bridge stood here from 668 until floods brought it down in 1144. Then, in 1146 or 1147, the Artuqid ruler Husam al-Din Timurtash ordered a new one. His first builder, al-Zahid, finished the eastern footing, but a flood swept it away, so the ruler fined him for “defective craftsmanship”.

After that, a new team restarted the work with massive timbers to support the arch. By 1153 the bridge was nearly finished, although the arch was still open when Timurtash died in January 1154. His successor, Najm al-Din Alpi, finally closed it, even though floods interrupted the work once more.

A name from the Marwanids

The inscriptions and old sources call the bridge Akarman, or Karaman. Later, local people began to call it Malabadi, after Bad, the founder of the Marwanid dynasty. In Kurdish the name means “the house of Bad”. In 1932 Albert Gabriel and the epigraphist Jean Sauvaget read an inscription on it in the name of Timurtash, dated 1147 or 1148.

Eight centuries of traffic

For centuries this was the only bridge across the river in the area, so travelers on the roads between Diyarbakır, Bitlis and Mardin crossed here. Builders repaired it late in the 12th century and again early in the 20th century. It carried traffic until the 1950s, when a new road bridge opened upstream, and the Silvan municipality restored it in 1989.

Things to See at the Malabadi Bridge

The great arch

Stand on the riverbank below the bridge to see the pointed main arch at its best. Its builders used stone of several colors. Because the roadway meets the river at an angle, the approaches bend on both banks, while small arches in the ramps let floodwater through.

Rooms inside the Malabadi Bridge

On both sides of the main arch, builders hid small rooms in the masonry, each about 4.5 meters (15 feet) to 5.3 meters (17 feet) long. Travelers and bridge guards used them as shelter, especially in winter. Stairs lead down to them from the roadway, and their windows are wide. Tunnels once carried the footsteps of approaching caravans to the guards.

The gate and the toll booths

At the top of the arch, a stone gateway about 5 meters (16 feet) wide once controlled traffic, and a toll booth stood on each side of the main span. Look also at the western pier in the river, where two figures are carved into the stone, one standing and one sitting.

The Malabadi Bridge in the eyes of travelers

When Evliya Çelebi crossed, iron gates like those of a castle closed both ends. He also described inns below the arch, rooms with iron-barred windows and railings of fine steel. Today the bridge still appears on the logo of the town of Silvan.

How to Visit Malabadi Bridge

Getting to the Malabadi Bridge

• From Diyarbakır: after the city walls of the Diyarbakır Fortress, drive east for about 104 km (65 miles) toward Silvan and Batman.
• From Silvan: the bridge lies about 23 km (14 miles) away by road.
• From Mardin: combine it with the stone houses of Mardin, where Timurtash also ruled.

Local tips for the Malabadi Bridge

• Walk across it, because the roadway is open to people on foot.
• Go down to the riverbank, since the arch looks highest from below.
• Read the official description on the UNESCO tentative list before you go.

For more of the region, see our Southeastern Anatolia page.