Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
time before the Conquest, it wasn't rediscovered until 1545, when scholar Petrus Gyllius
was researching Byzantine antiquities in the city and was told by local residents that they
were able to obtain water by lowering buckets into a dark space below their basement
floors. Some were even catching fish this way. Intrigued, Gyllius explored before finally
accessing the cistern through one of the basements. Even after his discovery, the Ottomans
(who referred to the cistern as Yerebatan Saray) didn't treat the so-called 'Underground
Palace' with the respect it deserved - it became a dumping ground for all sorts of junk, as
well as corpses.
The cistern was cleaned and renovated in 1985 by the İstanbul Metropolitan Municipal-
ity and opened to the public in 1987. It's now one of the city's most popular tourist attrac-
tions. Walking along its raised wooden platforms, you'll feel the water dripping from the
vaulted ceiling and see schools of ghostly carp patrolling the water - it certainly has buck-
etloads of atmosphere.
