Pergamon Bridge
The Pergamon Bridge is a Roman substruction bridge over the Selinus river (modern "Bergama Çayı") in the ancient city of Pergamon (today Bergama), modern-day Turkey. The wide structure, the largest of its kind in antiquity, was designed during Hadrian's reign (AD 117–138) in order to form a passageway underneath a large court in front of the monumental "Red Basilica" temple complex. The two intact tubes, which consist of supporting walls covered with barrel vaults, still serve their purpose to this day.
Library of Pergamum
Manuscripts were written on parchment, rolled, and then stored on the shelves. In fact, the word "parchment" itself is derived from Pergamum (via the Latin "pergamenum" and the French "parchemin"). Pergamum was a thriving center of parchment production during the Hellenistic period. The city so dominated the trade that a legend later arose indicating that parchment had been invented in Pergamon to replace the use of papyrus, which had become monopolized by the rival city of Alexandria. This however is a myth; parchment had been in use in Anatolia and elsewhere long before the rise of Pergamon. Parchment reduced the Roman Empire’s dependency on Egyptian papyrus and allowed for the increased dissemination of knowledge throughout Europe and Asia.