Your Virtual Guide to Adventure Outdoors!
Your Virtual Guide to Adventure Outdoors!
Turkish
Adventures
Maps & Trails
Istanbul: The Backpacker's Basic Guide
Istanbul: Hagia Sophia Tour
Sultan Ahmet Cami-The Blue
Mosque; An Istanbul Must-see
The Grand Bazaar
And Vicinity Survival Guide, part3
Trailmonkey's Guide Through: TOPKAPI
PALACE
The
Travertine Splendor & Roman Ruins of: Pamukkale
Getting Around Istanbul
Historical Background of Istanbul /
Constantinople
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The Backpacker's Basic Guide, Chapter 1
Its beauty etched in floodlit dome and minaret at dusk, Istanbul announces its unabashed longevity. Divided by waterways, the city mounts and descends on seven hills, pulsating as a living entity should. For the vitality of this city owes as much to its citizens of today as it does to past Byzantine emperors and Ottoman sultans.
Istanbul is undergoing re-embellishment under the guidance of a city administration that, while maintaining an awareness of history and tradition, is giving essential and considerate attention to the interests and well being of the present inhabitants, and its future ones in a city whose population, for Greater Istanbul, now stands at some 12 million, a figure that is increasing relentlessly.
Much debris has been cleared to be replaced by parks and gardens, most noticeably in the vicinity of the city's ancient walls. Pedestrian complexes have been established, as at Ortakoy on the European shore of the Bosphorus, below the stanchions of the lower Bosphorus bridge, where the 19th-century floodlit baroque mosque of the village has been disencumbered of what were unsightly irrelevancies, as has its accompanying park, to become the showpiece of a pedestrian-dominated quay side lively with restaurants, cafes, antique shops, bric-a-brac stalls, and a book enthusiasms quarter as you would find on a Parisian riverside. Here the city’s youth gathers each evening to eat, drink, walk and talk.
There is Kumkapi, too, down below those few remains of the greater Byzantine Palace, at a sea gate, always noted for its fish restaurants. It, too, has been turned into a pedestrian complex, with a burgeoning of small unpretentious restaurants with their seafood offerings.
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Along the Bosphorus shores many of the lovely old timbered houses and mansions have been restored to pristine elegance, an architect's delight. Elsewhere, blatant and unsightly hoardings have been discouraged, and traffic has been disciplined by roadway reconstructions and routings. One of the new city's principal thoroughfares has been totally allocated to pedestrians except for an ancient tramway that has been re-installed at the center in their service, to run all the way from Taksitn Square to Tunel, and almost three quarters of Taksim Square itself is now reserved for strollers and flaneurs.
The area of the Kariye Cami, the Church of St. Savior in Chora, with its beautiful 14th-century frescoes and mosaics, up near the Edirne Gate, in the walls, has also been turned into a peaceful complex with many of the area's old houses restored, and a gracious hotel.
The city gives away free milk and bread to any citizen who chooses to apply for vouchers, irrespective of income. New buses run on redesigned routes, and new steel trams run in the old city, where tourist buses are no longer permitted to park overshadowing the enduring monuments to be found in the area of Sultanahmet.
A new and wider Galata Bridge now spans the Golden Horn between Karakoy and Eminonu, and a second suspension bridge graces the middle reaches of the Bosphorus. A Byzantine building has been converted into the International Press Club on the waterside a little beyond the ferryboat quays at Eminonu, along with a terrace restaurant for non-members. There is a new Art Museum in a former textile factory at Ayvansaray, and another Byzantine building has become a Women's Library at Fener, the patriarchate quarter.
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Free milk and bread may not survive the term of office of the present mayoral administration, but the physical and cultural embellishments it has accomplished will most assuredly add to the city's enduring magnificence. On a more practical note, a Metro system is under construction, and there is a plan for a railway tunnel under the Bosphorus to link the western railway terminal at Sirkeci to the Anatolian terminal of Haydrapasa.
The main airport bus runs along Florya Highway and eventually turns left into Ataturk Bulvari to go through Aksaray to Unkapani, where it passes under the Aqueduct of Valens. If you intend to stay in the old city near the district of Sultanahmet, dismount from the airport bus at Aksaray. Recent road construction now carries incoming traffic from Unkapani along the Golden Horn to Galata Bridge where a revamped road system leads either to the THY air terminal station at Sishane or by way of Tarlabasi Caddesi to Taksim Square. Another route from Galata Bridge takes traffic past the main quay at Karakoy and along the Bosphorus waterfront through Kabatas to Besiktas.
An alternative form of transport in Istanbul and elsewhere in Turkey is the dolmus, or shared taxi. The service runs between fixed destinations and has passenger stops and a single charge as with buses. Though a dolmus can be of the taxi-type, the customary vehicle today is the more serviceable minibus.
To take the ferry to Uskudar on Istanbul's Asian shore, go to Kabatas, a little to the south of the Dolmabahce Palace. Although there are the Bosphorus bridges, and your taxi, or dolmus, is likely to take one or other rather than the ferry, the opportunity the boat offers to observe the outline of the city with its hills, domes and minarets is recommended.
In the meantime, there is a regular ferry service leaving from Karakoy near the Galata Bridge. Its destination is Kadikoy where Haydarpasa, the main railway terminal for Anatolia, is located. If your stay is to be short, or even if it is to be a longer one, the best plan would be to find your way to the Sultanahmet district where those monuments you will want to see can be found, such as the Topkapi Palace, St. Sophia, The Blue Mosque, the Archaeological Museum and the Grand Bazaar, all within reasonable walking distance of each other. They are in the area of the original walled city of Byzantium on the western side of the Golden Horn. If you are staying in Beyoglu, the new city, you can travel by taxi, bus or minibus down to the Golden Horn and then cross the Galata Bridge to the old city.
When Mehmet II breached the walls of Constantinople in May 1453, the Byzantine Empire had been reduced in size to little more than the area of the city. For the last emperor, who died in the breach, the battle had been fought courageously with few defenders, a lack of arms, and money and almost no Western support-a Genoese naval contingent arrived too late to participate. On entering the city, Mehmet went at once to St. Sophia and, prostrating himself at the altar, rededicated the building to Allah, after which he rode to what was left of the Great Palace where he reflected philosophically on triumph, time and mortality. His troops were then allowed to indulge in three days of looting and licensed mayhem-the customary privilege of a conquering army whatever its creed-after which the rehabilitation of the city as an Ottoman possession began.
Mehmet repopulated the city with Turks, but he also encouraged people of other nationalities, Greeks and Jews in particular, to set up businesses to help restore the city's commercial prosperity that throughout the latter years of the Byzantine Empire had seriously declined.
Gennadius, a Byzantine scholar, was installed as Patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church. Mehmet allocated the Church of the Holy Apostles as the seat of the patriarchate and, as with other ethnic communities, established the Greeks as a millet (self-administrating unit) under the patriarch, which included judicial control, though not for criminals, who were subject to trial in the Turkish courts. The authority of these millets would decrease with time. The patriarchate was later moved to the Pammakaristos Church and Monastery on the fifth hill overlooking the Golden Horn, while the Fatih Cami (Mosque of the Conqueror) was built on the site of Holy Apostles, on the fourth hill of the city, to the northwest of the Aqueduct of Valens. The church had been the burial place of emperors, and later Mehmet himself would be buried on the same hill. Murat III took over the Pammakaristos in order to build the Fethiye Cami, and the patriarchate was then established at St. George's Church in Phanar (now Fener) on the Golden Horn, where it is today.
In the initial period of occupation, the Ottomans converted many existing churches but later built mosques that within the complex often included a medrese (theological school), a hastanesi (hospital) and an imaret (soup kitchen). As well as Turkish architects, craftsmen of other nationalities were employed, and many high officers of state were selected from among foreigners who had converted to Islam.
With the first four sultans, up to the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottoman Empire achieved its apogee of influence and expansion. Imperial control lasted until this present century, but in the aftermath of the country’s defeat in World War I and the repulse of the Greek invasion of 1920-2, the empire ended with the declaration of a republic. Kemal Ataturk, its first president and great reformer, established the capital at Ankara. Besides Parliament and the embassies, the head offices of banks and large commercial and industrial enterprises are located there. Istanbul, though, retains much of its principal city aura, and its acquired authority as a former imperialistic masterpiece.
THE EARLY HISTORY:
About the middle of the seventh century BC the Megarans, neighbors of the Athenians, are believed to have built the first city on the site. Its name of Byzantium is said to derive from their leader Byzas, but authentic records of this early time are scant. In 506 BC, it was occupied by the Medes, but seems not to have been all that important to the Persian Xerxes who built a bridge of boats across the Hellespont, at the lower end of the Dardanelles, when launching his invasion of Greece. The Spartan general Pausanias captured it in 478 BC, and due to its strategic and political importance in the long power struggle between Sparta and Athens, the city changed hands on several occasions. Byzantium repulsed Philip of Macedon when he besieged it in 340 BC, and Alexander a year or two later chose to ignore it and made his crossing into Asia Minor by way of the Gallipoli Peninsula. As an independent city, its coinage bore the stamp of the crescent moon and star, a symbol that in a much later age was to spread panic among those in the path of Ottoman expansion.
In the second century BC the city elders signed a treaty of alliance with Rome and agreed to pay tribute, but Vespasian annexed it for the empire in AD 73. A civil war followed on the death of Commodus (AD 192), and the Byzantines made the mistake of supporting the rival of Septimius Severus who, after a three-year siege, revenged himself on the citizens by thoroughly sacking the city. Then, in recognition of its unique strategic value, he rebuilt it; his new city of Antoninia occupied the snout of high land above the Marmara Sea. Temples to Artemis, Aphrodite and Apollo are associated with Antoninia, with Apollo's temple located between those to Artemis (where St. Sophia now stands) and Aphrodite (on the St. Irene site). Of Antoninia, only some sections of the city’s Walls remain.
In AD 330, after defeating Licinius, his last remaining rival from the civil war that followed the death of Diocletian, Constantine chose Antoninia as the site for his capital of New Rome, which on completion was designated Constantinople. Constantine extended the boundaries of Antoninia, building his walls further to the west. With Constantine's declaration in favor of Christianity-his mother Helena was a convert who had been on pilgrimage to the Holy Places of Jerusalem and had returned with relics of Christ-the city became the Christian capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, though Constantine himself is thought not to have been baptized until on his deathbed. For a brief spell under Julian (361-63), there was a reversion to paganism. But Julian died in battle in the Middle East, and the future of Christianity was assured when Theodosius I (378-95) declared the empire Christian and ordered the destruction of all remaining pagan shrines. Rome fell to the Goths in 476, and Constantinople became the sole political capital of a developing Christian world.
In Justinian's time (527-65) much of the city was destroyed in the Nika Riot, but Justinian, one of the greatest of East Roman rulers and, as Hadrian had been, a prolific builder, reconstructed the city on a magnificent scale. His brilliant generals Belisarius and Narses regained most of Italy, Spain and the North African provinces for the empire, though the cost of doing so was to damage irrevocably the economic resilience of the state.
Some historians base the switch from Roman Empire to Byzantine during the reign of Justinian. He codified the laws that until that time had existed only in decrees. He recognized the predominance of Greeks among the empire's citizens by making Greek an official language of state along with Latin, and later Greek became the empire's sole official language.
Throughout the ensuing centuries Constantinople successfully repulsed many assaults, from Goths, Alans, Serbs, Bulgarians, Russians and seventh-century Arabs. Its defenses held, reinforced by new walls built in the fifth century under Theodosias II. (Standing to the west of the walls that Constantine built, they are the ones that can be seen there today.)
In the 12th century, though, the knights and soldiers of the Fourth Crusade attacked and took the city, establishing a Latin Empire and occupying it until 1261 when the Byzantines reoccupied it. They continued in possession, warding off a serious and sustained late 13th-century Ottoman assault by Beyazit I, until Mehmet's assault and victory of 1453.
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On leaving Topkapi, and passing Ahmet's fountain, Ayasofya (in Turkish), or St. Sophia, the Church of the Holy Wisdom, is on the right. The church from this southeast side looks massive, partly because of the heavy buttresses that were erected during the Latin occupation at the beginning of the 13th century. The Belfry on the west faV ade is a Latin addition too. Flying buttresses had been constructed in the ninth century. After the Byzantines reoccupied the city in the 1260s, Andronicus II Palaeologos put up other buttresses, setting these against the main piers. On its conversion to a mosque, Mehmet II erected a wooden minaret on the southeast comer, replacing this later with a brick one.
Beyazit II added a stone minaret at the northeast comer, and Sinan was employed by Selim II to erect another on the southwest, and finally in the cause of harmony Murat II added the fourth. Murat also donated two large alabaster urns taken from Pergamum to serve as an ablutions fountain in the forecourt. To add to the mounting clutter, several large tombs were placed on the west side. In general, the exterior aspect of this great church might well discourage a visitor prior to entering it. In fairness, the massive nobility of the structure is best seen from the Marmara Sea on a ferryboat making its way to the Princes' Islands.
Constantine, or his son and successor Constantius, is thought to have erected a first church over what had been a temple to Artemis on a site sacred to even earlier deities. This church, as with St. Irene, was among the buildings burned down in the Nika Riot of 532. Afterwards, Justinian commissioned Anthemius of Tralles and Isadore of Miletus to build a new and larger church, which was completed in 537. The unique feature of the new building was the round dome set on a square by use of squinches, pendentives and soffits. Twenty years later, weakened by earthquakes in 553 and 557, the dome collapsed; a new, higher one was erected by a nephew of Isadore of Miletus. In 986 the western arch collapsed, and the dome was rebuilt by an Armenian architect.
The eastern arch fell in 1347, and this time three Italian architects were employed to undertake repairs that took seven years. In the 19th century, Sultan Abdul Mecit I commissioned Swiss engineers, the Fossati brothers, to place an iron girdle about the dome.
in magnificence of concept, Justinian believed he had built better than Solomon with his Temple at Jerusalem. Its gold, silver, priceless brocades and precious ornamentation are no longer here: much of it disappeared with the Latins. Its mosaics and frescoes have been plastered over and whitewashed under Islam, and its windows have been boarded up or blocked. Kemal Ataturk ended Moslem worship there and declared it a museum, but the low-hanging chandeliers remain, as do the large medallions with their calligraphic inscriptions of Allah, Mohammed and the first four caliphs.
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The tall wooden structure with a stairway leading up to the mimber (a pulpit) is Moslem, and in the apse is the mihrab (the shallow niche that represents the cave in which Mohammed hid from his pursuers on the night of his escape from Mecca to Medina). Aligned on Mecca, the setting of a mihrab in a converted church can often look off-center, because the altar end of a church is seldom built to face east with such precision. The great dome, which spans 32 metros (105 feet), is supported on four main piers with arches between them and half-domes on the west and east. The eight pillars of the nave are of green Molossian marble and probably came from Ephesus. The porphyry columns of the porticoes are likely to have been cut in Egyptian quarries at Thebes.
Work on the restoration of the mosaics was begun in the 1930s by Thomas Whittemore and his team from the Byzantine Institute of America and was continued by Paul Underwood after Whittemore's death in the 1950s. The lunette (wall in which windows are set) over the main entry from the narthex-the vestibule between the church entrance and the nave-has a detail of Christ between founder of the Virgin Mary and the Archangel Gabriel, with a prostrate interceding emperor, Leo VI. In the dome of the apse is a portrait of the Virgin Mary. In the lunette over the southwestern entrance to the narthex, Constantine offers his city to Mary, while to Justinian he offers his church. In a room over the southwestern porch, there is a mosaic of Christ between Mary and John the Baptist (St. John Prodromos), and there are other portraits of Apostles and of patriarchs. The dome of the apse has a portrait of the Virgin. In the south gallery, the Empress Zoe and the Emperor Constantine IX Monomachus are on either side of an enthroned Christ. Near it another panel has John II Comnenus and his wife Irene in company with Mary, and in another damaged mosaic Christ is again with Mary and St. John Prodromos. All these works date between the mid-ninth and early 12 centuries.
Henry Dandolo, the blind Doge of Venice, who was the evil counselor at tile time of the Latin assault on Constantinople and its subsequent occupation, has rated at least a modicum of sanctity in that an inscribed stone in the women's gallery commemorates him.
Two of the original bronze gates that stood at the southwest entrance have survived. Entrance is now by way of the exonarthex and narthex on the northwestern end. The entrance fee is ~340,OOOTL, (Half for those with a Youth ID card).
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SULTAN AHMET CAMI-THE BLUE MOSQUE:
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An Istanbul "Must do" Adventure
Go southwest from Ayasofya, through the open area of the former Augusteum to the site of the Hippodrome to arrive at the Blue Mosque; the entrance into the walled forecourt is on the northwest side. If St. Sophia is a paean to the revealed Wisdom of God, Sultan Ahmet is celestial illumination through blue and green Iznik tiles: Allah is conveyed in a less-delineated form for the faithful than the son of God in Christian mosaic, portrait and sculpture. Four massive pillars support the 43-meter-(141-foot-) high dome, 23.5 meters (77 feet) in diameter, with half-domes on each side. The somewhat austere effect is set off by filtered and reflected light on the beautiful tulip patterned tiling. Birds nest in the dome and are in almost constant flight, as in an enormous birdcage.
The mosque, begun under Ahmet I in 1609 and completed in 1616, was built over part of the ruins of the Byzantine Great Palace, the Daphne. Its architect was Sedefkar Mehmet Aga, a pupil of Sinan. From the fine, spacious forecourt with its elegant fountain on six pillars with floral carvings, the exterior mass of the building lightens impressively as it rolls back and rises in ascending curves to the dome. There are six slender minarets. An apocryphal story says that Ahmet was considered presumptuous in erecting six minarets since the only other mosque with six was the Ka'aba at Mecca, and so as not to jeopardize his hope of eternal felicity the sultan donated a seventh to Mecca, which in fact already had seven minarets.
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For a Moslem, ritual ablution accompanies the five canonical daily periods of prayer. In the larger mosques, the sadirvan (ablutions fountain) is in the mosque's forecourt, though in some, such as the Ulu Cami at Bursa, the fountain is inside the mosque; in a small mosque a tap above a basin in the wall near the entrance may serve as the sadirvan.
*** One must go shoeless into a mosque, and women are expected to be soberly dressed, with covered heads. At large mosques overshoes or slippers can be obtained at the entrance; they are not for hire, but a small tip can be given to the custodian when returning them. Shoes can be left in his care or carried. In general, no objection is raised to the discreet use of a camera inside a mosque.
The Grand Bazaar And Vicinity
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Trailmonkey's Istanbul Survival Guide, part3
Between Constantine's Column and the Kapali Carsi, the Covered or Grand Bazaar, there are two mosques of interest, the Atik Ali Pasa Cami, which is one of the oldest in the city, and the Nuruosmaniye. The Atik Ali was built in 1497 by a grand vizier of Beyazit II. It is on the same side of the road as the Cemberlitas. A little further on again, and off to the right, is the Nuruosmaniye (Light of Osman), a mosque begun in 1746 under Mahmut I (1730-54) but completed by Osman III (1754-7). The interior is impressively uncluttered, and a multitude of windows let in light. By going through the courtyard of this mosque one of the ten or more entrances to the Grand Bazaar can be reached, though the main entrance to the Ic Bedesten (Old Bazaar) is further along on Divan Yolu.
The bazaar is a complex of market areas. The Ic Bedesten was in origin Byzantine; Mehmet II began extensions in 1461, and the complex grew. Fire has on more than one occasion destroyed whole sections, and there has been damage by earthquakes; repairs and reconstructions are undertaken on an almost permanent basis. Within the complex several main avenues and something like 100 cross streets or arcades exist!
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A bedesten is a separate vaulted court, each a center for a particular trade. The jewelers' is among those most advertised, but the merchants of fine rugs are numerous, as are those dealing in leather and suede. The bedesten for brocades is also an auction hall, where the items on display in the morning are for sale in the afternoon. One needs a visit or two to become acquainted with those bedestens of your particular interests. You may harbor a belief that bartering and oriental bazaars go hand in hand, you’re oh so correct! Nothing has a set price, and shopping around is advised. Don’t forget to have some tea ,cookies, or other treats while in the mists of bargaining on a rug or jewelry…the merchant will almost assuredly offer you stuff to keep you there, or close a sale. It’s a game you should learn to play when shopping here. Offer 60% of the price to start, and don’t go much higher than 75%! If you happen to be in a hurry over the purchase of a leather garment and cannot find one off the peg, there are tailors who can measure and make one in a matter of hours, including a fitting. The bargain hunter should perhaps temper enthusiasm with the realization that a bargain is what you make of it. Figure out what the item would cost elsewhere, check out quality closely, then make an offer under what you’d expect to pay, (Don’t make stupid offensive low offers)…negotiate a price you’re comfortable with. If not, move along to another shop, and try again.
There are over 3,000 shops, including restaurants and cafes, in the covered market. Streets on the northeast side of the bazaar lead down, shops all the way, to the Misir Carsisi, the Egyptian or Spice Bazaar, which is situated just off the waterfront at Eminonu on the Golden Horn, close to the western egress from Galata Bridge.
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Within the complex of the Grand Bazaar are several hans, (inns), in particular the Valide Han, built in 1651, and the Zincirli at the northwest corner. Throughout Turkey such hans provided accommodation for merchants, their animals and their merchandise, as well as for travelers. A hans is a large rectangular structure that has an open central courtyard, off which are the stables for the animals and storage space for merchandise; a balcony overlooking the court provides access to the rooms for merchants and travelers. Many abandoned han are still standing, and you may find one-where refinements are few, but the ambiance agreeable-still in use. They make for reasonable accommodations, but be weary of leaving valuables strewn about one’s room.
TOPKAPI PALACE
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FIRST COURT
Sultan Ahmet III loved fountains and tulips. He became sultan in 1703 and each April held a Tulip Festival. The Seraglio Gardens were decked with cages of canaries hanging in the trees, and lighted candles on the backs of roving tortoises. One of his fountains, decorated with marble tulips, is outside the Royal Gate of the palace. It was erected in 1728, but two years afterwards Ahmet was deposed because of his extravagance.
The Royal Gate, or Bab-i-Humayun, is in the walls of Septimius Severus' rebuilding of Byzantium, which he called Antoninia after his wife. The gate opens on the First Court and entrance grounds of the palace.
Over to the left after entering is the Church of St. Irene, Hagia Eirene (in Greek), or Church of Divine Peace. It was never converted to a mosque and is classified as a museum. A first church, in all probability built over an earlier temple to Aphrodite, was burned down during the Nika Riot of the sixth century and afterwards rebuilt. Still remaining is the basilican ground plan of the church-rectangular with a semicircular apse on the eastern end, but structural modifications and rebuildings followed another fire and an eighth-century earthquake. The artillery armament that used to be on display outside the Church of the Holy Peace has been removed now to the new Askeri Muze (Military Museum) at Valikonagi Sokak 1, at the northern end of Cumhuriyet Caddesi at Beyoglu, the new city, where the road forks to Nisantas.
THE JANISSARIES
Near St. Irene stood the Mint, and in front of this building the great plane tree is still there, known as the Tree of the Janissaries, the Ottoman Royal Corps of Guards. By tradition the Janissaries would assemble at this tree whenever they wanted to dispute their conditions of service or, more drastically, depose a sultan. Their method of protest was to bang their cooking pots or 'kettles' or, in a serious revolt, overturn them. Under Mahmut II (1808-39), the Janissaries had become such a menace to the court and to public order that the sultan secretly deployed artillery units about the palace. When the Janissaries overturned their kettles and called for the sultan's deposition, murdering the emissaries he had sent to parley with them, the sultan mounted a white charger with the Banner of the Prophet unfurled and ordered the artillery to open fire at point-blank range. The Janissaries who survived this onslaught took refuge in their barracks, which were then pounded mercilessly. The handful of Janissaries who escaped this massacre fled to the Basilican Cistern where each was individually hunted down and killed. The corps was never re-formed.
An Executioner's Fountain stands close to the Ortakapi, the Middle Gate and entry to the Second Court. The gate had a prison, and the executioner doubled as the palace head gardener. After execution the head of a ranking person was displayed on the Ortakapi but a less-privileged person had to be content with an ear or a nose set up outside the Royal Gate among the mass of the executed.
SECOND COURT
The Middle Gate, Bab-i-Salam, or Selam Kapisi (Salvation Gate), is a double one designed to prevent unlawful entry. This is where the entrance fee is paid, (~340,000TL/ Students half price with Youth Card) with an extra charge for visiting the Harem. In the vicinity evidence of the Byzantine Magnaura Palace has been found by excavators.
On the right of this Second Court are the domestic quarters where the main kitchen with its enormous fireplace and huge cooking pots and cauldrons, as well as iron and copper kitchen utensils, can be seen. In another section is a large display of porcelain and china, gifts to the court from kings, queens and potentates; in other sections are copperware, glassware and silver.
On the west side of the court is the Divan, or Kubbealti (Council Chamber), in which the grand vizier, the empire's executive officer, conducted affairs of state. Until the time of Suleiman the Magnificent, the sultan himself used to preside at meetings here, but Suleiman constructed a room with access to his own quarters in the Harem, allowing him to overlook proceedings incognito. Ahmet III discontinued this use of the Divan, and there after the grand vizier conducted meetings outside the palace in his own quarters, which became universally known as the Sublime Porte. There is a private entrance to the Harem behind the Divan; the public entrance is at the back of the Armory, the next building up on that side.
THIRD COURT
The entrance to the Third Court is the Gate of Felicity, or Bab-us-Saade, and the building immediately inside the entrance is the sultan's throne room, or audience chamber. Ambassadors often had to wait on benches at the gate before being summoned to an audience. Here were the quarters of the White Eunuchs, who served the sultan and the palace and were therefore neutralized, not castrated as were the Black Eunuchs, who served in the Harem and had their quarters there.
Under a colonnade on the right-hand side, there was a palace school for boys in the Court of the Enderun. On graduation the pupils first served the sultan as pages. The rooms here now have a display of royal clothing and ceremonial costumes. Next to it, in the former Treasury, is the royal collection of jewelry, along with jewel encrusted daggers, swords, thrones, cots and gewgaws into which jewels have been indiscriminately embedded. This is quite an impressive display, not to be missed! The Library of Ahmet III, which is at the center of the main court, has a collection of illuminated manuscripts.
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The most sacred building in the Third Court is the Pavilion of the Holy Mantle, or Hirka-i-Saadet Dairesi, containing Mohammed’s cloak, brought back along with his sword and standard by Selim I, after his conquest of Egypt. These three sacred items conferred the title of Caliph on the holder, the highest religious office in Islam.
Lower down on the left of this court is the 15th-century Agalar Cami, and behind it is the discreet Kushane Kapisi entrance to the Harem. The Harem complex consisted of 250 rooms situated on varying levels, and in the time of Suleiman the Magnificent there were 1,000 selected inmates, as well as other girls in training. Sinan designed part of the Seraglio for Suleiman, and a concealed passageway led from that sultan's quarters to the room of his current favorite. The Valide Sultan, the mother of the Sultan, was nominally in charge of the Harem and had her quarters there. Another section consisted of the Kafes which was in fact a royal prison for the heir to the throne. Those who lived there were cut off from all contact with society outside the palace: Osman III spent 50 years in the Kafes prior to his elevation as sultan.
Mehmet II, the conqueror of Constantinople, on his accession promulgated the Law of Fratricide-given credence by Koran interpreters-whereby a newly elected sultan, as a safeguard against palace rebellion and conspiracy, had his brothers and other near relatives executed by means of a silken cord. A later sultan suspended this law and restricted action to confinement in the Kafes of only the immediate heir to the throne. In the 19th century, the mad Abdul Hamid II temporarily revived the Law of Fratricide.
FOURTH COURT
Notable in the Fourth Court is the Baghdad Kiosk, or Bavgdat Kosku, which Murat IV built, modeled on a building he had seen in Baghdad at the time of his capture of that city in 1638. It has exquisite tiling and faience work, and the rooms, complete with divans, look out to a courtyard with a fountain and views of the Golden Horn. In the same court the Revan Kiosk is earlier building, again modeled on a building that Murat had noted on campaign. This kiosk has for company the Sunnet Odasi of 1641, built by Sultan Ibrahim for the circumcision ceremonies of princes. The Mustafa Pasa Kiosk, Kara Mustafa Kosku, or Sofa Kiosk, was so named because of its low-set sofas in the window bays. Kara Mustafa was the grand vizier responsible for restorations at the palace. Pierre Loti, the French novelist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, was given the sultan's permission to stay at this kiosk during his residence in Istanbul.
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With its pools, gardens and marble terraces, the Fourth Court is an agreeable place to linger. It has a restaurant situated in a kiosk that was a favorite retreat of Abdul Mecit I and overlooks the Marmara Sea. A gateway out of this fourth court leads to Seraglio Point where wayward and offending ladies of the Harem, tied into weighted sacks, were dropped into the Bosphorus.
Abdul Mecit (1831-61) abandoned Topkapi in favor of Yildiz Kiosk near Besiktas on the Bosphorus, on the other side of the Golden Horn, and lived there until the building of the Dolmabahce Palace was completed.
In their Revolution of 1908 the Young Turks, whose political aim was to bring Turkey out of the dead past and into the 20th century, broke up the Harem and invited relatives of inmates to reclaim their kin. Circassia in the Caucasus region had been a favored recruiting ground for girls, and many villagers arrived from Circassian villages, as from elsewhere, to claim their kin. Not every odalisque was so claimed, nor did every inmate welcome release from the security the Harem had provided. Unclaimed residents were given house room in the Eski Saray, the Old Palace near the Fatih Cami, which had been the Harem prior to Suleiman's day.
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