Kamal Anwar
Yerebatan Sarnıcı (Basilica Cistern), Istanbul, Turkey, June 2007
Yerebatan Sarnıcı website:
Turkish: www.yerebatan.com/indextr.html
English: www.yerebatan.com/english/index.html
Once used as a location for the James Bond movie "From Russia with Love", this subterranean cistern is a Roman engineering feat which supplied the local neighbourhood with water, obtained by lowering buckets through holes in basements. Brick vaults are supported on 336 columns spaced at 4m intervals.
It was built during Emperor Justinian's reign and was left derelict for centuries until a Frenchman named Peter Gillius re-discovered it in 1545. It was fully restored in 1987 and nowadays provides a cool place from which to escape the heat of Istanbul during the hotter months. At the far end of the site, you will find 2 Medusa heads recovered from some other ancient site and used as column bases.
Yerebatan Sarnıcı (Basilica Cistern), Istanbul, Turkey, June 2007
Yerebatan Sarnıcı website:
Turkish: www.yerebatan.com/indextr.html
English: www.yerebatan.com/english/index.html
Once used as a location for the James Bond movie "From Russia with Love", this subterranean cistern is a Roman engineering feat which supplied the local neighbourhood with water, obtained by lowering buckets through holes in basements. Brick vaults are supported on 336 columns spaced at 4m intervals.
It was built during Emperor Justinian's reign and was left derelict for centuries until a Frenchman named Peter Gillius re-discovered it in 1545. It was fully restored in 1987 and nowadays provides a cool place from which to escape the heat of Istanbul during the hotter months. At the far end of the site, you will find 2 Medusa heads recovered from some other ancient site and used as column bases.