Tag Archives: Byzantine Istanbul

Now Live: Istanbul Recap Video
After reviewing ~800 video clips and spending countless hours editing a fraction of those, the Istanbul highlight reel is finally here!

Reconsidering Mehmet
Death, being a sneaky bastard, does not always cooperate with princes, kings, and emperors, and in the age when medicine included things like medical astrology and bloodletting, and eschewed things like basic hygiene, this was especially true. The reductionist could make a surprisingly cogent argument for accidents of birth and death being responsible for empires.

Byzantine Istanbul V: Church of the Holy Savior in Chora
So if it’s just a little Byzantine church, what’s the big deal? That will become abundantly clear inside, when you’re greeted by wondrous art: the kind of art that makes you understand what all the fuss is about art; the kind of art that makes you forget to close your mouth when you stare. The best kind of art.

Byzantine Istanbul Part IV: The Church of Theotokos Pammakaristos
30 mile per hour winds shut down the Golden Horn ferry, so we ended up walking. This might have otherwise been a pleasant walk but for the evil weather, and I know that Michelle particularly didn’t enjoy having to constantly hold her skirt against the wind. Then I compounded the trouble by taking a quick detour through some of the least-welcoming neighborhoods of the city.

Byzantine Istanbul Part III: The Bukoleon Palace
The Roman Emperor Theodosius II was a prolific builder, and his fingerprints are all over modern Istanbul. This in spite of the fact that he was emperor some 1600 years ago. If you are a Byzantine buff, you probably know all about Theodosius II, who reigned when the empire was split between eastern and western […]

Byzantine Istanbul Part II: The Great Palace Mosaics
The museum itself is small, including floor mosaics of about 250 square meters, or about 2700 square feet. But archaeologists estimate that only one-seventh to one-eighth of the floor remains. To put that into perspective, we are talking about nearly half an acre of mosaic flooring. That’s something like an area from the 50 yard line to the goal line on an American football field. Archaeologists have suggested that it may have taken 80 million tesserae, the small, square tiles of limestone, glass, and ceramic that make up the mosaics.

Byzantine Istanbul Part I: The Column of Constantine
In this series of posts, I will catalog and explain these sights. It is my goal to find the remnants of Byzantine Constantinople in Turkish Istanbul. There is much left to find, but not all of it is out in the open.
Today, I will write about one of the oldest Byzantine sites in the city, the Column of Constantine.
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