Istanbul's Basilica Cistern

Thursday, 19 August 2010. We are back in James Bond territory again.

In From Russia With Love our intrepid hero is taken by Kerim Bey, Head of Station T for Turkey, down into this huge underground water reservoir to spy on the Russian embassy via a submarine periscope hidden behind a mousehole.

In real life the periscope would have to be a very sophisticated version because the Russian embassy is nowhere near this place...

Since 1963 when the film was made the water level has been reduced to a few feet only and a huge amount of silt removed to make the apparent size even more impressive. A walkway has been constructed so that visitors can walk about the vast area without the need to ferry them about in boats as was necessary before.

With the removal of 50,000 tons of silt and mud between 1985 and 1987 two fabulous Roman Medusa head carvings were found to have been used as bases for pillars. The one shown is placed upside down and the other is on its side. There are two possible reasons for this. It was one way of stopping the image of Medusa from turning people into stone. Or placed this way they were just the right height needed to support the pillars...

So here are a few facts from the excellent, if quaintly worded, information pamphlet, seemingly translated from Turkish into English by someone who had little experience of either language, (but probably just showing how lucky I am to have been brought up to speak English instead of having to learn it later). In fact why is everybody else so much better at learning foreign languages than us Brits? Because they have to learn the most complicated language where the same letters have lots of different sounds - ough... ie though, through, bough, enough, cough...

The cistern was built between 527 and 565 AD. Not long after the period in which King Arthur was supposed to be chasing Saxons out of Britain and five centuries before the Normans arrived to show their descendants what it felt like to be invaded. It is 140m long by 70m wide with the roof supported by 336 columns of 9m height arranged in 12 rows of 28 columns. It held 100,000 tonnes of water.

There are some (bloody big!) fish swimming about down there...

In fact, let's finish with my favourite bit from the official information pamphlet and I salute the translator who decided this slightly sinister phrase would tempt us down the 55 steps from street level to see the undoubtedly wondrous place where all those (thankfully absent) rats chased James Bond after he blows up the Russian Embassy. It reads...

"The visitors melt into disappearance when they are here in the cistern to see the Medusa head, in accompany of fish and a smoothing music."

Fantastic!

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The Hagia Sophia, Istanbul

Thursday, 19 August 2010. Following our visit to the Blue Mosque we come out of the courtyard through an archway and across the way we see our next port of call.

This is the Hagia Sophia or Sancta Sophia. Not St Sophia. In this case sophia is the phonetic spelling for the Greek word for wisdom. The full name of the church is Church of the Holy Wisdom of God.

We are in James Bond territory. In the 1963 film From Russia With Love this is the church that Bond waits in for Tania, the Russian agent to bring him the plans of the Russian Embassy. A Bulgar agent gets to the plans first, but Spectre assassin, Grant kills him and a bewildered Bond takes the plans from his body.

In the film a Guide points out this huge marble jar to some tourists.

Bond has been waiting for Tania from the dark of the side passages underneath the balcony. There are some low wooden stages with wooden railings and I stepped up on one of those to take photos of the main floorspace. Although they weren't roped off and there were no warning notices this turned out to be against the rules. Unfortunately the official who was trying to get me off was standing behind me and instead of calling out, just kept tapping on the railing. I never even heard him and it wasn't until Fran called out that I turned round.

This is an extremely old and important place. It was first built in 360 AD by the Romans and the foundations of that early building are on display today. This is the third basilica started only a few days after the destruction of its predecessor. This was in the year 532. Until the Basilica of Seville in Spain was built in 1534 it was the largest basilica in the world. Think about that - it was the largest cathedral or basilica in the world for a thousand years! It includes some of the columns from the Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the World at Ephesus.

The balcony is reached today by what was described as a "spiral staircase" but turned out to be a rectangular spiral ramp that had been designed to allow baggage-laden mules to reach the upper floor. No doubt the Sultans' wives would not trouble themselves to walk either! Here Fran is demonstrating how out of breath she was...

The view from the balcony is well worth the climb. We were told that the scaffolding is permanent. It just moves about a bit. With the successful invasion by Ottoman forces in the year 1453, the church was converted to a mosque.

Images of saints, apostles, and angels were either destroyed of plastered over. The removal of this plaster following the building's subsequent conversion to a museum in 1935 revealed some damage to underlying artwork, which was made worse by damp conditions due to leaks in the roof and rising damp from below.

As a museum the basilica now displays both Christian paintings and Muslim calligraphy.

There are several fine mosaics with gold and precious stones. This one shows the infant Christ held by the Virgin Mary flanked by Emperor Constantine offering a model of the city of Constantinople and Justinian, the builder of the Hagia Sophia, offering a model of the basilica. It was warm. I melted into the shadows at the back of the basilica and kept a careful watch for Bulgar agents and assassins...

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