The Bridge of Gemarrin is a Roman bridge

Roman bridge

Roman bridges, built by ancient Romans, were the first large and lasting bridges built. Roman bridges were built with stone and had the arch as its basic structure....

 in the vicinity of the ancient

Ancient history

Ancient history is the study of the written past from the beginning of recorded human history to the Early Middle Ages. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, with Cuneiform script, the oldest discovered form of coherent writing, from the protoliterate period around the 30th century BC...

 city of Bosra

Bosra

Bosra , also known as Bostra, Busrana, Bozrah, Bozra, Busra Eski Şam, Busra ash-Sham, and Nova Trajana Bostra, is an ancient city administratively belonging to the Daraa Governorate in southern Syria...

, southern Syria

Syria

Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....

. The bridge, which belonged to the Roman road

Roman road

The Roman roads were a vital part of the development of the Roman state, from about 500 BC through the expansion during the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire. Roman roads enabled the Romans to move armies and trade goods and to communicate. The Roman road system spanned more than 400,000 km...

 to Soada Dionysias (As-Suwayda

As-Suwayda

As Suwayda , also spelt Sweida, is a mainly Druze city located in southwestern Syria, close to the border with Jordan.It is the capital of Muhafazat as Suwayda, one of Syria's 14 governorates, bordering Jordan in the South and the governorates of Daraa in the West and Rif Dimashq in the North and...

), crossed the Wadi Zeidi some kilometers north of Bosra.

Today, the structure presents itself essentially as an arch skeleton: while the three semi-circular arches, made from local basalt

Basalt

Basalt is a common extrusive volcanic rock. It is usually grey to black and fine-grained due to rapid cooling of lava at the surface of a planet. It may be porphyritic containing larger crystals in a fine matrix, or vesicular, or frothy scoria. Unweathered basalt is black or grey...

, are still extant, the roadway and the fill have been removed to expose the top of the arch vaults. Obliquely running embankments on both sides of the wadi force the water in the river bed under the bridge.

At least two other Roman bridges over the Wadi Zeidi, the Kharaba Bridge

Kharaba Bridge

The Kharaba Bridge is a Roman bridge in the fertile Hauran region, Syria, close to the ancient city of Bosra.The bridge crosses the Wadi Zeidi, a tributary of the Yarmuk, 3.5 km northwest of Bosra. It features three semi-circular arches, each 3.8 m clear, 2.4 m wide piers and a...

and the one At-Tayyibeh, have survived to this day.

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