Basilica Cistern in Istanbul
Introduction
The Basilica Cistern in Istanbul is an underground structure, commissioned by Emperor Justinian and built in 532. In Turkish language, it is known as Yerebatan Sarnıcı. It is the largest surviving Byzantine cistern in İstanbul. It was originally known as the Basilica Cistern because it lay underneath the Stoa Basilica, one of the great squares on the first hill.
The reason to build this structure was to service the Great Palace and surrounding buildings. It could store up to 80,000 cu meters of water delivered via 20km of aqueducts from a reservoir near the Black Sea, but was closed when the Byzantine emperors relocated from the Great Palace.
Rows of Columns
The cistern is 140 m long, and 70 m wide, and covers a rectangular. Accessible with 52 step staircase, the cistern has 336 columns, each of which is 9 m high. Erected at 4.80 m intervals from one another the columns are composed of 12 rows, each has 28 columns. The columns used were brought from different parts of the empire where they were once parts of other buildings. This recycling of columns may have been done to save cost.
The rediscovery of this ancient cistern came in 1545, when scholar Petrus Gyllius was researching Byzantine antiquities in the city and was told by local residents that they were able to obtain water by lowering buckets into a dark space below their basement floors. The cistern was cleaned and renovated in 1985 by the İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality and opened to the public in 1987. It’s now one of the city’s most popular tourist attractions.
Head of Medusa
Perhaps the most iconic example of spoliation is the re-use of the heads of Medusa as the bases of two columns located in the northwest corner of the cistern. As the legend has it, Medusa is one of the three Gorgonas that are female monsters in the underground world in Greek mythology. The snake-head Medusa, one of the three sisters, has the power of gorgonising the ones that happen to look at her.
