Bridges provide safe passage over natural obstacles, primarily over rivers. They form an integral part of hydraulic landscapes and define territories and boundaries. The physical appearance of bridges as structures overwhelming and even ‘humiliating’ the river has granted them symbolic meanings as triumphal monuments visualizing the conquest of a river and the expansion of state territory, or as a liminal space between opposed worlds. This paper investigates the significance of Late Byzantine bridges (1204–1453) as an architectural and cultural phenomenon. It examines built structures, as well as imagined representations in visual and written sources, in an interdisciplinary framework. The discussion of Byzantine bridges and their comparison to Seljuk and Ottoman monuments emphasizes the significance of this particular class of monument as an expression of power and as a defining element of hydraulic landscapes — both real and imagined.

中文翻译：

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晚期拜占庭桥梁作为想象景观的标志

桥梁为自然障碍物，主要是河流提供了安全通道。它们构成了水力景观的一个组成部分，并定义了领土和边界。桥梁作为压倒性甚至“羞辱”河流的结构的物理外观赋予它们象征意义，作为凯旋的纪念碑，可视化征服河流和扩张国家领土，或作为对立世界之间的界限空间。本文研究了拜占庭晚期桥梁（1204-1453）作为一种建筑和文化现象的重要性。它在跨学科框架中检查建筑结构以及视觉和书面资源中的想象表现。