Guide
The Koyunbaba bridge crosses the Kızılırmak in the centre of Osmancık and was built in the reign of Bayezid II. Work began in 1484 and was completed in 1489.
It is 250 metres long and 7.5 metres wide, built of rectangular yellow cut stone, with nineteen pointed arches. Silt carried by the river has filled some of them over time, and only fifteen can be seen today. The bridge takes its name from Koyunbaba, one of the well-known Turkish saints.
Its inscription is written in Arabic script in five parallel lines. It names the man who had the bridge built — Sultan Ebü'l-Feth Bayezid, son of Mehmed Han — with his titles, and says nothing at all about the architect. The text opens with the thought that the world is, in the eyes of those who take heed, a bridge of passage, and that lasting life and joy are impossible for created things; it presents the bridge as a continuing act of charity, built so that those who cross it would take heed and so that everyone might benefit. It closes with the dates: begun in the month of Şaban of the year 889 and finished in 894.
