The Architecture of Two Bridge across the Jordan River during the Mamluk Era

Chronicles and archaeological resources provide meager information about bridge architecture. Most often these architectural elements (bridges) are mentioned in course of narrating about the marching of armies or battling in the close proximity. The river Jordan has been a natural route linking Bilad ash-Sham, Egypt, Iraq and Arabian Peninsula, and during the Mamluk era a system of bridges was constructed on it. Most of these bridges has disappeared and only some remnants of them are left. Some of them have been rejuvenated and new bridges with new names have been built in the location of older ones. This paper sheds light on the architecture of the Mamluk bridges, their genres, stages of construction, locations, names of executing contractors, and professions associated with these bridges. Two bridges are selected to discuss in this article; one was constructed during the reign al-Dhahir Baibars (658-675 AH\1260-1277 AD) and the other during the reign of  ad-Dahir Barquq (784-801 AD.\1382-1398 AD.). An inscription associated with the Baibars’ bridge is analyzed here, and the conscientious location of the bridge has been delineated. During the recent past these bridge has been demolished by the Israelis who constructed new bridges in the same location of the old ones.