The Cistern Chapel

So, if anyone is wondering why the drinking water has a "fishy taste" - that's because there are fish in the drinking water. 

One of the major sites in the old portion of Istanbul is the Basilica Cistern.  Visitors today see a huge underground structure used to store water.  However, this site formerly housed a large Basilica, which was destroyed in a riot a few hundred years ago.  After the Basilica was destroyed, the site was changed into a large underground facility for the storage of water.

The huge structure is supported by several hundred large stone pillars.  It is believed that most of the pillars were taken from somewhere else and transported to Istanbul.  Some people will argue that these pillars were 'stolen' from other places in the empire before being brought back to Istanbul.  There are many, many things throughout Istanbul that were delivered there while the city was the capital of various empires (Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman, to name a few big ones).  For example, the obelisk behind Mark in the photo below is not native to Istanbul, but was delivered there to celebrate a great military victory (or something like that) and still stands in that city's Hippodrome.  Whether these things were "stolen," is a matter of opinion - usually influenced by whose ox is being gored.

That is not supposed to be here...

However, is it really even possible for the emperor to steal from within the empire?  I mean, if you're the emperor and you take something from your own empire and move it to another part of your empire, is that stealing?  If so, are you stealing from yourself?

But I digress.

One of the most obvious pieces of evidence indicating that the columns in the Basilica Cistern are not native to the site is the art contained on the columns.  In particular, there are two heads of Medusa that are used as bases for some columns.

Never trust a Gorgan.

Medusa is a character from mythology that you may recall.  There are a few different versions of her tale, but the two things they all have in common is that she had a head with snakes coming out it instead of hair (awesome) and that if you look at her, you will turn to stone (bogus).

These two columnar bases are carvings of Medusa.  Do not worry about turning to stone, however.  In addition to the mythology filter installed on the NewBulgarians blog, these carvings of Medusa were placed sideways and upside down by whomever placed them there.  This precaution is thought to reduce the chances of a 'flesh to stone' incident by at least 15 to 20%.

Other than the snakes for hair and being upside down, not a bad looking lady.

According to people who know about such things, these carvings were most likely done somewhere else in the Roman Empire (probably a little closer to Rome).  When the project to build this cistern was commissioned and required a few hundred columns, these and other statutes from around the empire were drafted into service.  They have remained on duty in the cistern ever since.

Anne and Mark found the Basilica Cistern to be stone cold awesome.