É. Apor (ed.): Stein, Aurel: Old Routes of Western Iran. (Budapest Oriental Reprints, Ser. B 2.)
Chapter II. —In Kohgalu Tracts
1 0 0 IN KOHGALU TRACTS [Chap. II marking where a syphon must have served to carry the water of another qanät. Both aqueduct and syphon are likely to have been constructed at a time when deeper erosion of the ravine had rendered the two channels lower down useless. Following a line of shafts belonging to old qanäts there was reached the shrine of Imäm-zäda Riza built on the high conglomerate terrace close above the head of the bridge. A block of concrete masonry embedded in the enclosing wall of this recent-looking shrine may have had some relation with the ruined bridge below. The remains of this bridge, even in their state of far advanced ruin, are very imposing (Fig. 22), but differ in some respects from those of the old bridges at the Tang-i-Brin and Khairäbäd. On the left bank four much decayed piers stretch from the very steep cliff, 60-70 feet high, overlooking the river to the bed which it fills in the winter. During the floods of the spring and summer the river inundates much of the ground between these piers. The distances between the extant piers vary greatly, from 24 to no feet, just as do the dimensions of the masses of broken concrete masonry which survive. The facing stones of the piers, except the huge rough blocks used in the bases, have almost throughout disappeared. The arches once spanning the spaces between the piers have completely fallen. Whether the distance of 110 feet between the third pier from the cliff and the pier on the very edge of the water was spanned by a single arch, or whether there was an intermediate pier, could not be definitely determined, so great has been the destructive force of the floods which must at times have assailed this mighty bridge.
