astronomy

Stari Most

Stari Most is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Stari Most rather than just read about it. In short: The Old Bridge (Serbo-Croatian: Stari most), also known as the Mostar Bridge, is a rebuilt 16th-century Ottoman bridge in the city of Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It crosses the river Neretva and connects the two parts of the city, which is named after the bridge keepers (mostari) who guarded the Old Bridge during the Ottoman era.

Key takeaways

Stari Most belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Stari Most to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Stari Most from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Old Bridge (Serbo-Croatian: Stari most), also known as the Mostar Bridge, is a rebuilt 16th-century Ottoman bridge in the city of Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It crosses the river Neretva and connects the two parts of the city, which is named after the bridge keepers (mostari) who guarded the Old Bridge during the Ottoman era. Commissioned by Suleiman the Magnificent in 1557 and designed by Mimar Hayruddin, a student and apprentice of the architect Mimar Sinan, the Old Bridge is an exemplary piece of Balkan Islamic architecture. During the Croat–Bosniak War, the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH) used the bridge as a military supply line, leading the Croatian Defence Council (HVO) to shell and destroy it on 9 November 1993. Subsequently, the bridge was reconstructed, and it reopened on 23 July 2004. In 2017, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) deemed that the bridge was a legitimate military target.

Characteristics The bridge spans the Neretva River in the old town of Mostar, the unofficial capital of Herzegovina. The Stari Most is hump-backed, 4 metres (13 ft 1 in) wide and 30 metres (98 ft 5 in) long, and dominates the river from a height of 24 m (78 ft 9 in). Two fortified towers protect it: the Halebija tower on the northeast and the Tara tower on the southwest, called "the bridge keepers" (natively mostari). Instead of foundations, the bridge has abutments of limestone linked to wing walls along the waterside cliffs. Measuring from the summer water level of 40.05 m (131 ft 5 in), abutments are erected to a height of 6.53 metres (21 ft 5 in), from which the arch springs to its high point. The start of the arch is emphasised by a moulding 0.32 metres (1 ft 1 in) in height. The rise of the arch is 12.02 metres (39 ft 5 in).

History

The stone single-arch bridge is considered an exemplary piece of Balkan Islamic architecture and was commissioned by Suleiman the Magnificent in 1557. It was designed by Mimar Hayruddin, a student and apprentice of architect Mimar Sinan who built many of the Sultan's key buildings in Istanbul and around the empire. As Mostar's economic and administrative importance grew with the growing presence of Ottoman rule, the precarious wooden suspension bridge over the Neretva gorge required replacement. The old bridge on the river "...was made of wood and hung on chains," wrote the Ottoman geographer Katip Çelebi, and it "...swayed so much that people crossing it did so in mortal fear". In 1566, Mimar Hayruddin designed the replacement bridge, which was said to have cost 300,000 Drams (silver coins) to build. The two-year construction project was supervised by Karagoz Mehmet Bey, Sultan Suleiman's son-in-law and the patron of Mostar's most important mosque complex, the Hadzi Mehmed Karadzozbeg Mosque. Construction began in 1557 and took nine years: according to the inscription, the bridge was completed in 974 AH, corresponding to the period between 19 July 1566 and 7 July 1567. Little is known of the construction of the bridge, thought to have been made from mortar made with egg whites, and all that has been preserved in writing are memories and legends and the name of the builder, Mimar Hayruddin. Charged under pain of death to construct a bridge of such unprecedented dimensions, Hayruddin reportedly prepared for his funeral on the day the scaffolding was finally removed from the completed structure. Upon its completion, it was the widest human-made arch in the world. The 17th century Ottoman explorer Evliya Çelebi wrote that the bridge "is like a rainbow arch soaring up to the skies, extending from one cliff to the other... I, a poor and miserable slave of Allah, have passed through 16 countries, but I have never seen such a high bridge. It is thrown from rock to rock as high as the sky."

Destruction During the Croat–Bosniak War, the Bosniak Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina used the Old Bridge as a military supply line. Slobodan Praljak, the commander of the Croat Defence Council, ordered the destruction of the bridge, which collapsed on 9 November 1993 as a result of shelling by the Bosnian Croat forces. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia found it to be a legitimate military target as the opposing Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina used it for military purposes. The first temporary bridge on the traces of the Old Bridge was opened on 30 December 1993; it was built in only three days by Spanish military engineers assigned to the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) mission. The temporary structure was subsequently upgraded three times, to eventually link the shores with a more secure cable-stayed bridge until the proper reconstruction of the Old Bridge. Newspapers based in Sarajevo reported that more than 60 shells hit the bridge before it collapsed. Praljak published a document, "How the Old Bridge Was Destroyed", where he argues that there was an explosive charge or mine placed at the centre of the bridge underneath and detonated remotely, in addition to the shelling, which caused the collapse. Most historians dismiss these claims and disagree with their conclusions. Some scholars assessed that the bridge had little military significance and that the shelling of the old town centre represented a deliberate destruction of cultural heritage, particularly the Old Bridge, which symbolized the connection of different communities. András Riedlmayer described the demolition as an act of “killing memory,” or memoricide, in which shared cultural heritage was intentionally destroyed. Croatian media reported claims that the bridge was destroyed by units of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH), primarily referencing materials published by Slobodan Praljak on his personal website, where he presented analyses based on available video recordings of the demolition. They also published conspiracy theories about Bosniak units destroying the bridge in order to blame the Croats for the destruction. On 6 April 2023, a video was released showing footage recorded from Mount Hum, continuously following the trajectories of more than 50 projectiles fired by a tank of the Croatian Defence Council (HVO), while voices identified as HVO soldiers can be heard cheering and shouting profanities as the projectiles struck the bridge.

Reconstruction

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Stari Most

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Stari Most claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Stari Most before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Stari Most ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Stari Most

In research: Stari Most appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Stari Most in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Stari Most is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Bridges completed in 2004, Bridges completed in the 16th century, Bridges over the Neretva in Bosnia and Herzegovina, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Stari Most outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Stari Most in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Stari Most means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Stari Most out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Stari Most in simple terms?

Why does Stari Most matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Stari Most?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Stari Most.