Luoyang Bridge

Luoyang Bridge, also called Wan'an Bridge, is a stone beam bridge across the sea. It was completed in December 1059, in the Northern Song, and Cai Xiang, then prefect of Quanzhou, took part in the work and led it. The builders met several problems: money ran short, seven piers could not be built, and the deck slabs could not be put up. The bridge runs north and south, and its middle section stands on an island in the river called Zhongzhou. In 1988 it was named a national key cultural heritage site of the third batch; its category is ancient building and its date is the Northern Song. It is an example of a stone beam bridge joined to a raft-type foundation.^1,2

The piers of Luoyang Bridge are built of cut stone blocks on raft-type foundations, and the upstream side of each pier is shaped into a cutwater with a slightly upturned tip. The top two courses of the piers project outward on both sides to shorten the span of the stone beams. The deck slabs are large stone blocks, and when the bridge was first built they were set in place by using the rise and fall of the tide. There is also an account that oysters were farmed to strengthen the piers, but given the local ecology it has long been strongly disputed whether oysters needed to be specially cultivated for this.^1,2