It was built by the East Roman Emperor Justinian I (527–565 AD) to improve communications between the capital Constantinople and the eastern provinces of his empire.

With a remarkable length of 430 m, the bridge was mentioned by several contemporary writers, and has been associated with a supposed project, first proposed by Pliny the Younger to Emperor Trajan,[1] to construct a navigable canal that would bypass the Bosporus.

[3] Today, the bridge spans the small Çark Deresi stream (called Melas in Antiquity), which flows from the nearby Sapanca Lake; the modern course of the far wider Sakarya lies 3 km to the East.

[5] The date of construction for the stone bridge can be accurately determined from contemporary sources: two laudatory poems of Paul the Silentiary and Agathias, dating to the year 562, celebrate its completion, and the chronicler Theophanes records that the work began in Anno Mundi 6052, which corresponds to 559–560.

[11] On the western entrance a triumphal arch stood, while on the eastern side there are the remains of an apse, whose function is unclear, but possibly served as a religious shrine.

The inscription has not survived, but its content has been preserved in the writings of Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus: Καὶ σὺ μεθ' Ἑσπερίην ὑψαύχενα καὶ μετὰ Μήδων ἔθνεα καὶ πᾶσαν βαρβαρικὴν ἀγέλην, Σαγγάριε, κρατερῇσι ῥοὰς ἁψῖσι πεδηθεὶς οὕτως ἐδουλώθης κοιρανικῇ παλάμῃ· ὁ πρὶν γὰρ σκαφέεσσιν ἀνέμβατος, ὁ πρὶν ἀτειρὴς κεῖσαι λαϊνέῃ σφιγκτὸς ἀλυκτοπέδῃ.You too, along with proud Hesperia and the Median peoples and all barbarian flocks, Sangarios, whose tempestuous course is broken by these arches, thus by the sovereign's hand has been enslaved.