In the heart of Istanbul’s historic district, Sultanahmet, lies a hidden historic treasure that takes a while to find and reach, but strikes you with awe so hard, that it might take a lifetime to get over it.
We had been in the ‘city of two continents’ for quite a few days and had walked the streets and alleyways of Sultanahmet to its entirety, when we read about the Basilica Cistern in one of the travel handbooks. The name really doesn’t reveal much of what it could be about. Is it an erstwhile underground church? Is it a cave where people from some bygone era worshipped? We wondered as we wandered the streets, when suddenly our eyes caught the signage heralding the location of the Basilica Cistern, right across the Aya Sofya, off the Divan Yolu Caddesi, one of the oldest streets of the city.
20 TL (Turkish Lira) tickets and some forty steps down a dark, winding, narrow staircase suddenly lead us into a vast subterranean expanse that was simply unbelievable at first sight. How could anyone ever imagine, right under the belly of a bustling city can exist such a place?
We learnt that this place, called the Basilica Cistern or the Yerebatan Sarayi (Sunken Palace), was only an underground water storage tank that received water through the Roman aqueducts from higher grounds, and supplied water to the Byzantine palaces in Constantinople of the middle ages.
Only a water tank it was, but the grandeur, the detailing, the architecture was simply mind-blowing, to say the least. Built by the Byzantine emperor Justinian I, it is a forest of marble pillars, 336 in all, arranged in a regular sixteen feet grid stands 30 feet tall, mounted by masonry cross vaults to support the roof.
This forest of marble pillars, lit by a fantastic red haunting light from below, and standing on a feet deep pool of water creates an eerie, yet fascinating atmosphere, that can only be felt to be appreciated. Wooden decks meandering through the pillars have been created over the pool to take visitors into the depths of the cistern. Fish of varying sizes swarm the pool as you notice them in the dimly lit water. One corner reveals coins thrown in the water – a wishing well of sorts. As we tread along, we gently stroke the strange but beautiful carvings on the marble, and wonder why would anybody take so much pain to carve a pillar that would be submerged in water forever?
When we reach the end of the decked passage, taking in the oddity of the space, and trying to dodge dripping water from the vaults above, we are in for a massive surprise. There, right at the corner of the cistern, stand two pillars on large sculpted pedestals – two beautifully carved marble heads of Medusa – one lying on its side, and the other upside down! How, when, why they happened to be there, no one knows. But there they lay, bearing the burden of the massive pillars and the vaulted roof of the cistern for centuries. Medusa discovered under the streets of Istanbul – in the Basilica Cistern.
We had been in the ‘city of two continents’ for quite a few days and had walked the streets and alleyways of Sultanahmet to its entirety, when we read about the Basilica Cistern in one of the travel handbooks. The name really doesn’t reveal much of what it could be about. Is it an erstwhile underground church? Is it a cave where people from some bygone era worshipped? We wondered as we wandered the streets, when suddenly our eyes caught the signage heralding the location of the Basilica Cistern, right across the Aya Sofya, off the Divan Yolu Caddesi, one of the oldest streets of the city.
20 TL (Turkish Lira) tickets and some forty steps down a dark, winding, narrow staircase suddenly lead us into a vast subterranean expanse that was simply unbelievable at first sight. How could anyone ever imagine, right under the belly of a bustling city can exist such a place?
We learnt that this place, called the Basilica Cistern or the Yerebatan Sarayi (Sunken Palace), was only an underground water storage tank that received water through the Roman aqueducts from higher grounds, and supplied water to the Byzantine palaces in Constantinople of the middle ages.
Only a water tank it was, but the grandeur, the detailing, the architecture was simply mind-blowing, to say the least. Built by the Byzantine emperor Justinian I, it is a forest of marble pillars, 336 in all, arranged in a regular sixteen feet grid stands 30 feet tall, mounted by masonry cross vaults to support the roof.
This forest of marble pillars, lit by a fantastic red haunting light from below, and standing on a feet deep pool of water creates an eerie, yet fascinating atmosphere, that can only be felt to be appreciated. Wooden decks meandering through the pillars have been created over the pool to take visitors into the depths of the cistern. Fish of varying sizes swarm the pool as you notice them in the dimly lit water. One corner reveals coins thrown in the water – a wishing well of sorts. As we tread along, we gently stroke the strange but beautiful carvings on the marble, and wonder why would anybody take so much pain to carve a pillar that would be submerged in water forever?
When we reach the end of the decked passage, taking in the oddity of the space, and trying to dodge dripping water from the vaults above, we are in for a massive surprise. There, right at the corner of the cistern, stand two pillars on large sculpted pedestals – two beautifully carved marble heads of Medusa – one lying on its side, and the other upside down! How, when, why they happened to be there, no one knows. But there they lay, bearing the burden of the massive pillars and the vaulted roof of the cistern for centuries. Medusa discovered under the streets of Istanbul – in the Basilica Cistern.
