The Basilica Cistern, Istanbul - one of the most amazing roman places I've ever seen

While in Istanbul last week we visited one of the most amazing things I've ever seen - the Basilica Cistern.

The cistern is an underground reservoir for storing water. It sits right across the street from the Hagia Sophia. It was built by the Romans around 1500 years ago. What ,makes it really amazing is that it was built from recycled parts of older roman temples, and hence it has different stonework wherever you look.

Its quite a large cavernous area, with a beautiful vaulted ceiling that is held up by 336 columns ! It was excavated some time around the 1980s, and still has around half a foot of water in it now. When excavated it had a deep layer of mud at the bottom, and you can see the brown mud tide marks on the columns in the pic above.

A walkway has been constructed to allow you to tour around the area and keep dry. In addition beautiful mood lighting has been added, which changes colours, and in tandem via reflecting from the water makes for an incredible atmosphere.

A number of cool sculptures have also been added just to spice it up further, like these fantastic jellyfish above.

I found the re-use of architectural pieces quite amazing. As can be seen above, some of them are just fantastic, like the column above.

But the head of medusa above is the absolute wonder of the whole site. Its upside down probably because it provides a nice flat surface for the column above it, however, some also think it was put down there to keep any invaders out of the water supply.

There is actually another one on its side supporting the column next to it. These would have been taken from a pagan temple, which may have been torn down when the roman empire started converting from paganism to Christianity - Constantinople as Istanbul was called at the time, was a major centre for that conversion - so that story stacks up quite well.

The medusa heads are in an alcove area in the far corner of the cistern - and this modern medusa sculpture has also been added beside them, and the shadow it casts on the wall is quite incredible and quite spooky !

I had only found out about the cistern about a week before flying out to Istanbul, and I just had to see these medusa heads. They looked utterly amazing !

The cistern was constructed because the area of Istanbul it is in has no natural water sources, and water was being carried in from a considerable distance away. As the population grew this became unsustainable, and so the reservoir was constructed, and was fed by an aqueduct. There is actually another cistern in the same area, also built by the romans, but a lot smaller - we also visited that and I'll cover it in another post.

I really like roman history and I've been travelling to see their buildings for many years now, and I have to say this ranks in my top 3 fav places, and probably does actually take the number one slot, alongside the roman baths in Bath, England, and the mausoleum of Hadrian which sits under the Castel Sant Angelo in Rome. Although there are other roman places I love like the Pantheon and Hadrians wall - those 3 places really make you feel like you have stepped back in time, and especially this one.

The column above has what looks to be a greek inscription, which is not surprising for Istanbul, and may have actually been a lintel that would have originally been in a horizontal position, that has been modified to act as a vertical supporting pillar.

The picture above was taken from the entrance steps, and provides a nice view of the vaulted ceiling. Clearly the metal ties have been added as reinforcement, and some columns have been replaced (not many though) to make sure the overall structure is safe.

Above is another great example of the re-use of older materials. Here you can clearly see 3 to 4 different pieces used to provide the correct height for the supporting pillar. Considering when this was built, they did an amazing job to get all of those 336 pillars aligned to the right height using odds and sods of pieces from the temples they tore down. They must have had incredible surveying and setting-out skills.

I find it hard to describe how much of an impact this place had on me, and I would totally recommend it to anyone. If you like architecture and ancient history - then this place is right up there with the wonders of the world in my book.

I could have stayed in there all day - the lighting really help to show up various details, like the lovely flooring stones at the bottom.

Above is the last view I had on exciting the cistern - the lights changed colour again, and gave quite an amazing view.

The pic above is a view of the area above the cistern taken just as I came out of the exit door. There was actually a roman basilica on this site from the 3rd or 4th century, but clearly thats gone now - and by looking at what is above, you couldnt even begin to imagine what is below !

I'm so happy to have been able to see this place - it really was incredible, and all 4 of us on the trip agreed that it was the most amazing thing we saw while there, noting that the other 3 on the trip dont even remotely have the same passion as I do for ancient history.

I would happily go back to Istanbul to see this place again - totally awesome ! Even looking back at the pics now is sending shivers up my spine - an incredible place !