Basilica Cistern

The Basilica Cistern remains the largest of the underground reservoirs of Byzantine Constantinople. It was built under Justinian I around 532 on the site of a square with a basilica, hence the name. The hall, one hundred and forty metres long and seventy metres wide, is covered by brick vaults carried on three hundred and thirty-six columns set in twelve rows of twenty-eight. Almost all of them were gathered from earlier buildings, so the shafts and capitals match neither in material nor in order. The capacity of the structure is estimated at about eighty thousand cubic metres; the water came here by aqueduct from the forests to the north-west of the city and supplied the palace quarter. In Ottoman times the cistern was used for a while to water the gardens of Topkapi, then almost forgotten, and it was described anew in the sixteenth century, when it turned out that local residents were pulling fish out of their cellars. In the far corner lie two blocks with heads of Medusa, set on their side and upside down. After restoration the hall was given new lighting and walkways suspended above the water.

On the map