The Basilica Cisterns

Now I'm finally getting around to starting to write about my trip to Istanbul. Istanbul has several great historical buildings that have been turned into museums, like Topkapi palace and Aya Sofya, but one of my favorites was the basilica cisterns, which is also listed here in Travel + Leisure's 25 Coolest Underground Wonders. It certainly didn't take as long to walk around in the cisterns as it did in Topkapi palace, which was huge, but it's dark and creepy which gives it a unique ambience. There is now a walkway so that visitors can walk around it, and many of the columns are lit which give the cisterns limited visibility. There are also carp in the water, which you can faintly see, which adds just a little bit more to the spectral quality of the place.

The lights on the columns reflect into the water.

The cistern is over 100,000 square feet and contains 12 rows of 28 columns. It was built in the 6th century during the reign of Emperor Justinian I, and provided water to the palace in Constantinople back then. Even in more recent times it provided water to Topkapi palace after the Ottomans built it in the 15th century. It is said the the construction of the cistern took 7,000 slaves. One of the columns inside is different than the others and is called a Hen's Eye column - the designs on it in tear shapes are said to honor the slaves who died while building it.

Hen's Eye column

There are two more unique columns in the cistern, which are similar to the others except that at the base of each is a Medusa head. One is sideways, and one is upside down. It possible that the sideways one was turned that way so that it would fit the size of the column, but the upside down one is the same width whether upside down or right side up, so it must have been placed like that on purpose. One possibility is that they turned it upside down in order to negate the effects of the gorgon's gaze. The Medusa heads were probably originally from a Roman temple or other structure, but no one knows where they actually came from.

Sideways Medusa head at the base of a column.

Though the visit doesn't take long, I loved the slightly eerie atmosphere that was unlike any of the other attractions you'll find in Istanbul. I've since read that there are supposedly several hundred ancient cisterns lying beneath Istanbul, which is fun to think about.