Visiting the Basilica Cisterna

Made famous in the Dan Brown novel and movie 'Inferno' (I think) is the now empty cistern in the Old City of Istanbul. It is not far from the Hagia Sophia and therefore our hotel. 

I am about to go out for Day 2's events, so will throw in some images from this very impressive structure, and come back to it tonight. Since Constantinople sits on a peninsula with no good fresh water supply, the emperors built cisterns for secure supply especially during times of siege. its construction began in 532. This particular cistern is dug underground into rock, but then bricked over. The roof is held up by 336 columns, often marble plundered from other sites of antiquity. When full, and it seemed higher than the stated 9m high, the people would cast a bucket through holes in the roof for their daily water. 

It is 138m long x 65m wide, able to hold 80,000 cubic metres of water. The walls are 13 feet thick, coated with a water-proofing mortar. The water came from 19km away in a forest via two aqueducts constructed by Emperor Justinian. It has undergone many restorations; in 1987 50,000 tons of mud was removed and a wooden boardwalk installed to replace the boats previously used to 'tour' the cistern. Luckily for us, the most recent restoration which installed the metal boardwalk, commenced in 2017 and was re-opened as late as 2022. While quite a few of our destinations are partially closed for restoration. 

Today it is cleverly lit; kilometres of metal boardwalk sit above about 15cm of water, there are many coins offered; and there are several stunning water-based art works - jellyfish, leaves, creatures(?). The spectacle was amazing, even after discovering I had my sun glasses on throughout. It began in a darkened tunnel, and so I never truly realized it!

We began at street level, after a fairly short queue. Immediately we began a descent down a ramp with no lighting, and that was a bit eerie. Soon we joined the boardwalk where there seemed to be so many people all milling about. Probably all waiting with their tour guide as we were. Then the boardwalk began and almost instantly there seemed to be no crowd nearby. You could go in any direction, so perhaps this helped. 

We wandered, seeing columns that were well worn and others that seemed crisp and even decorated. 

The jellyfish sculptures and the kelp were delightful. Even the wretched sea creature was interested projected as a huge shadow into a corner.

So as you can see, although there were hoards of people within this cistern, it was possible to really feel as though they were not there. It took about 45 minutes to wind our way around the site. There were bottlenecks at the two columns where Medusa heads sat at the bottom. It is amazing to consider how such structures were created; how columns of solid marble and granite were transported from other sites hundreds of miles away; how the brick roofs were made, arches and all.