Through the Outer Gardens of the Saray - Strolling Through Istanbul: The Classic Guide to the City - page 103

whose high retaining wall we see on our right. The kiosk just above
the retaining wall is that of Osman III, built in the mid-eighteenth
century in a baroque style. In the park below the kiosk we see an
ancient structure that has been restored and is now open to the
public. This is a Roman cistern dated to the early fourth century, its
brick roof supported by 12 columns in three rows of four each.
On the left side of the park we now come to the new Museum of
Islamic Science and Technology, which opened in 2008. The museum,
which was conceived by the Turkish historian of science Fuat Sezgin,
is devoted to the history of Islamic science and technology from the
ninth through the sixteenth century. The instruments and other
objects on display here were reconstructed by the Institute for the
History of Arabic-Islamic Science at Goethe University in Frankfurt,
based predominately on illustrations and descriptions found in
original sources and, to a lesser extent, on surviving originals.
Once past the walls of the inner palace, we follow the path leading
uphill to the right and come to one of the very oldest monuments in
the city. This is the so-called Goth's Column, a granite monolith 15
metres high surmounted by a Corinthian capital. The name of the
column comes from the laconic inscription on its base: FORTUNAE
REDUCI OB DEVICTOS GOTHOS, which means: “To Fortune,
who returns by reason of the defeat of the Goths.” The column has
been variously ascribed to Claudius II Gothicus (A.D. 268-70) or
to Constantine the Great, but there is no firm evidence either way.
According to the Byzantine historian Nicephorus Gregoras, this
column was once surmounted by a statue of Byzas the Megarian, the
eponymous founder of Byzantium.
Taking a path leading of from the column towards the park exit,
we pass the ruins of what appears to be an early Byzantine structure,
consisting of a series of small rooms fronted by a rather irregular
colonnade. These ruins have never been thoroughly investigated and
their date and identity have not been established.
Passing through the park exit we cross the highway and walk out
to Saray Point. As we do so we pass a large bronze statue of Kemal
Atatürk, the father of modern Turkey and the first President of the
Turkish Republic. This monument, which was made in 1926 by the