The ancient Arkadiko Bridge or the Kazarma Bridge is a wonderful illustration of engineering constructed by the Mycenaeans around 1300–1190 BC. This bridge which is an arch bridge is found by the side of the moderm roads that link Tiryns to Epidaurus in the region called the Peloponnese in Greece and it is among the most ancient bridges that were erected and are still in use in the present day.
It starts with the construction of the southern arm of a bridge, Cyclopean work that employed huge blocks of stone and small stones placed without cement. Due to this strong method of construction the bridge has stood for over three thousand years. The Arkadiko Bridge is Ncrete and measures 22 meters in length, 5.40 centimeters in width at the base, and it is 30 centimeters or one meter in height. Constructed for the purpose of facilitating chariot traffic, this was manifested by the provision of barriers on the course’s roadway to chariots.
This old bridged was a part of an extended network of military roads that was used in unification of Mycenaean cities like Tiryns, Epidaurus and others. Transportation routes were very important during the Mycenaean times for military purposes and commerce indicating the importance of the Arkadiko Bridge.
Nevertheless, even now, the Arkadiko Bridge is intact and is occasionally used by the local population for walking and for delivering goods on carts for agricultural needs. Even now the bridge continues to be highly functional which portrays the Mycenae’s engineers who applied sound engineering principles and procedures in construction of the abutments to afford the bridge enormous longevity and weather proof.
Similar other Mycenaean bridges exist in the close vicinity for instance the Petrogephyri and are constructed and used for similar purposes, thus exposing the extensiveness of Mycenaean roads during the period. These bridges, together with the Arkadiko one shows how arch bridges were constructed during the pre-classical Greek and Classical Greek times long before the great achievements of the Romans.
The Arkadiko Bridge not only makes people realize the architectural sophistication of the Mycenaean but also tells the history about their society and the technological progress they have made. Conservation measures are still being made to save this old artifact as a symbol to continue exhibiting the historical and engineering values of the monument.
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