The Underground Cavern

I may have mentioned that Istanbul is old.

It’s also been conquered five or six times by various armies, empires, and warlords. The city been sacked, burned, leveled, rebuilt and then sacked again. Depopulated, populated, and repopulated.

Istanbul is old, venerable, and has secrets.

Centuries ago, a Byzantine emperor ordered that a great water reservoir be built underneath the section of the city that would later be called the Sultanhamet. Today the Sultanhamat is essentially the “old town” of Istanbul. The Aya Sofia, Blue Mosque, and Grand Bazaar are all there, along with the Sultan’s palace.

The water reservoir was built to hold millions of liters of water for daily use and to keep the city supplied with water during a siege. It was constructed with small wells that led from homes directly to the common reservoir. The system worked, and it worked well. People could just throw a bucket down a hole in their house and get fresh, clean water any time of the day.

But then something happened. The city was overrun, a plague, historians aren’t sure. Most of the inhabitants of what would become the Sultahamet died or moved. Other people moved in and thought the holes served another purpose. I have no idea what. But they dumped trash, waste, and sometimes, dead bodies. The great reservoir of Constantinople became Istanbul’s forgotten trash pit.

It was re-discovered in the 20^th century. Someone with way more curiosity than sense strapped themselves into a harness and crawled down one of the holes, wondering what was down there.

I wonder what he thought when he first descended into the cavern I’m currently standing in. Was he afraid? Was he excited? Was he as fascinated by this otherworldly place as I am?

The cavern is like a strange underworld. A walkway allows visitors to walk around the whole structure, in between large columns taken from all over the empire. Archeologists speculate about why there are different types of columns in the reservoir, but I think it was probably some contractor who got lazy and took all the extra columns he had at the warehouse and then pocketed the money meant for the new ones.

But that doesn’t explain the heads.

In a far rear corner, carved into two of the base stones for a pair of columns are Medusa heads. One is upside down, and the other on it’s side. In the yellow, hazy light of the electric bulbs, they seem to stare at you with evil, rage filled eyes, as if they were the guardians of this place who are now impotent to stop the throngs of visitors.

-Doug