After exploring the historical things of the city, we decided to shop a little bit before our tour of the city underground cisterns. We found a cute little shop & got drawn in by the brothers who run the shop. They let us taste all their different Turkish delight samples, some saffron, perfumes, & fruit teas. I know they were just trying to sell us things, but we really enjoyed the time we spent there getting to know them & learning about their culture. We bought a huge box of Turkish delight to share at Cadence’s open house the following week. After shopping, one of the brothers took us to the roof of their rug shop to show us his view of the blue mosque which was spectacular. He asked us a lot of questions about our religion & told us he had been reading & studying the Book of Mormon which was really fascinating since we do not have missionaries in Turkey at this time. We spent quite a bit of time with him talking about religion, & then we had to find our way to the Basilica Cistern.
We had a guide for the cisterns, so he took us down with him (skip the line) & he spoke to us for about 30 minutes about the history of the cistern, then let us roam for as long as we liked. The Basilica Cistern is the largest of several hundred cisterns underneath Istanbul. It was built in the 6th century by Justinain I. The cistern provided a water filtration system for the palaces & important sections of the city. It has been providing water from the 6th century into modern times. This cistern is huge. It’s about 105,000 square feet in area. It holds 80,000 cubic meters of water. The ceiling is supported by 336 marble columns each 30 feet tall, arranged in 12 rows of 28 columns each spaced 16 feet apart. All the columns used in the cistern were “recycled” columns from other ancient Roman buildings. They were beautiful to walk through. Each column is different & unique & it made it even more interesting to stop & admire each one. In the northwest corner of the cistern sits 2 medusa head blocks. Neither is standing upright (due to superstition): one is upside down, & the other is on it’s side . . . they believe it would stop the power of Medusa’s gaze if it wasn’t upright. We spent a good hour wandering the columns & just enjoying the majesty & beauty of it all.
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