Guide
The Dunaysir bridge crosses the Zergan stream in the Kochisar quarter, on the Kızıltepe-Derik road in Mardin province. It carries no inscription. The dating offered rests on inference: the Great Mosque of Kızıltepe, about a hundred metres to the south, has an inscription of 1204, and given both that date and Kızıltepe's importance as a centre in the thirteenth century, together with the bridge's position, materials and construction technique and its resemblance to other Artuqid bridges, it is accepted as an Artuqid work of the early thirteenth century. It was registered as a protected property in 1996, has come down through repairs in various periods, and is sound and still in use.
The bridge runs north to south and belongs to the group of bridges with a sloping roadway, with five pointed-arched openings. The deck is 51 metres long, 5.40 metres wide and about five metres high. The middle opening is larger and higher than the others, with two smaller ones on each side, and pointed arches carry the load at the piers. On the upstream side are four cutwaters on triangular bases, finished at the top with half-pyramidal caps. There is no decoration. The bridge is built of regular yellow cut stone, though the roadway and the caps of the cutwaters have now been covered with concrete. District buses serve it.
