Sultanahmet Square: Basilica Cistern

I know my posts have been less frequent but that's because I officially started working 2 weeks ago. Making that paper. -- I'm sure I'll have posts about that in the future. For now, though I decided it would be nice for me to talk about all the places I've visited in and around the city. So these posts will be for all you uncultured heathens who asked me, "What's in Turkey? Why would you even want to there?" 

Well , guess what? Turkey got tourist traps on traps on traps. 

Don't belee me? Juh watch ... or read. 

First, I'm gonna break yall off with a piece of the historical peninsula in Istanbul. Locally, it is referred to as the Sultanahmet District. This district is home to Istanbul's biggest tourist attractions including the Hagia Sophia, the Basilica Cistern, the Blue Mosque, and Topkapi Palace. I'll be going in the order I visit/visited them which leads me to my first attraction, the Basilica Cistern. 

The Basilica Cistern or Yerebatan Sarayi ("Sunken Palace" in Turkish) is the largest of hundreds of ancient cisterns beneath Istanbul and was built in the 6th century under the Emperor Justinian. 

The people who settled around the cistern were provided with their daily water through various openings in the ceilings. 

 

In the western corner of the cistern, there are two column bases in the shape of a Medusa heads. Traditionally, the story goes that the Medusa heads were oriented sideways and inverted in order to negate the effects of Medusa's stone cold gaze. Apparently, however, archaeologists say it is most likely because  they needed them to be the proper size to support the column. -- That shit sounds super whack  to me so I'm gonna choose to subscribe to the traditional story. 

It took me about 10-15 minutes to tour the whole cistern. The fact that there's still water and fish in there was pretty awesome,. The architecture was beautiful  and the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism had the mood lighting on point. Had me feeling like I was at a spoken word joint. But I enjoyed the Medusa heads the most . So, without the Medusa heads I probably would have rated this attraction a 7.5 but instead I'm gonna give it an 8.5 -- I'm a Greek/Roman mythology freak what can I say? This shit really lights my fires. 

And just like the Black person I am, all I could do was repeat the Andre 3000 line from his feature on John Legend's "Green Light," "So I went hard like Medusa staring at me." 

SIDE NOTE:  If you fancy seeing the Basilica Cistern in one of it's theatrical appearances, take a looksie at The International with my man Clive Owen. Its a pretty good movie. 

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