Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
9
Around Beyazıt
and Şehzadebaşı
We will begin this stroll in Beyazit Square, which may fairly be said
to be the centre of modern Stamboul. Indeed this square has been
one of the focal points of the city for more than 15 centuries. In
late Roman Constantinople this was known originally as the Forum
Tauri, named after the colossal statue of a bull that once stood there.
In 393 the square was rebuilt by the Emperor Theodosius I, the Great,
and thenceforth it was called the Forum of Theodosius. The Forum
of Theodosius was the largest of the public squares in Byzantine
Constantine. It contained, among other things, a gigantic triumphal
arch in the Roman fashion and a commemorative column with reliefs
showing the triumphs of Theodosius, like that of Trajan in Rome.
Colossal fragments of the triumphal arch and the commemorative
column were found during reconstruction of Beyazit Square in the
1950s, and are now arrayed on both sides of Ordu Caddesi next to the
two hans on one side and Beyazit's hamam on the other. Notice the
enormous Corinthian capitals and the columns curiously decorated
with the lopped-branch design that we have seen on a column in
the Basilica Cistern. Fragments of the commemorative column have
also been revealed built into the foundations of the hamam, where
they produce a startling efect. There we see the figures of marching
Roman soldiers, some of them ingloriously standing on their heads!
ŞİMKEŞHANE AND HASAN PAŞA HANI
At the very beginning of Ordu Caddesi, we see the remains of two
enormous hans, each of which lost its front half when the avenue was
widened in the 1950s. They were left in ruins, but both of them have
since been restored and are once again functioning as commercial
buildings. The one to the east is Şimkeşhane, and was originally built
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