Failed Living Root Bridges

The following is a listing of sites where botanical architecture once existed, but has now been destroyed. There are two broad categories of fallen living root bridges: those which have fallen relatively recently and of which there are still significant physical remnants, and those which have been entirely removed, though enough people remember them for there to be a general idea of where they once existed.

Information about these former living root bridges is often vague, and sometimes contradictory. I have only created a listing when there is solid evidence for a destroyed bridge. Often, villagers will know that there were once living root bridges on their land, but wont know how many there were, how long ago they failed, or why. This means that there is often reason to believe that there were once many living root bridges in a given area, but there isn’t sufficient information to pinpoint where they stood. People with more time and resources might be able to extrapolate the locations, approximate dimensions, and ages, of these former living root bridges, and this information would be highly valuable when trying to piece together the history of the practice of creating living root architecture as a whole.

The listings given below are organized alphabetically by village name.

FAILED LIVING ROOT BRIDGES:

DARRANG 2

IMG_3076

KUDENG RIM 3

KUDENG RIM 4

KUDENG RIM 6

IMG_3188

LAITIAM 3

IMG_1415

LAITIAM 4

IMG_1432

MAWLAM 2

IMG_1957

MAWLAM 4

IMG_2015

MAWLAM 5

MYNTENG 2

IMG_2108

NONGPRIANG 1

IMG_1463

NONGPRIANG 2

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NONGSHLUID 1

NONGSHLUID 2

IMG_1188

NONGSTENG 2

IMG_1050

NONGSTENG 3

NONGSTENG 4

SOHKMI 2

UMBLAI 1

IMG_1142

UMBLAI 2