Along the Land Walls - Strolling Through Istanbul: The Classic Guide to the City - page 359

comrade John Dalmata. The Fifth Military Gate is known in Turkish
as Hücum Kapısı, the Gate of the Assault, preserving the memory of
that last battle. On the outer lintel of the gate there is an inscription
recording a repair by one Pusaeus, presumably in the fifth century.
The Edirne Gate stands at the peak of the Sixth Hill and is at the
highest point in the city, 77 metres above sea-level. This gate has
preserved in Turkish form one of its ancient names, Porta Adrianople,
for from here started the main road to Adrianople, the modern Edirne.
It was also known in Byzantium as the Gate of Charisius or sometimes
as the Porta Polyandrium, the Gate of the Cemetery. This latter name
undoubtedly came from the fact that there was a large necropolis
outside the walls at this point. Several ancient funerary steles from this
necropolis can still be seen set into the courtyard wall of the Greek
church of St. George, which stands just inside the walls near the gate.
It was through the Edirne Gate that Sultan Mehmet II made
his triumphal entry into the city on 29 May 1453, and a modern
plaque beside the gate commemorates this event. Evliya Çelebi,
whose ancestor Yavuz Ersinan was present at the time, gives this
vivid description of that historic moment: “The Sultan then having
the pontifical turban on his head and sky-blue boots on his feet,
mounted on a mule and bearing the sword of Mohammed in his
hand, marched in at the head of seventy or eighty thousand Moslem
heroes, crying out 'Halt not conquerors! God be praised! Ye are the
conquerors of Constantinople!' ”
MİHRİMAH CAMİİ
Just inside the Edirne Gate to the south stands the magnificent
mosque of Mihrimah Sultan, which dominates the Sixth Hill and can
be seen for miles about in all directions. It is one of the architectural
masterpieces of the great Sinan, built by him for the Princess
Mihrimah, the favourite daughter of Süleyman the Magnificent.
The külliye was built between 1562 and 1565 and includes, besides
the mosque, a medrese, a mektep, a türbe, a double hamam, and
a long row of shops in the substructure of the terrace on which it
is built. Unfortunately the complex has been very severely damaged
by earthquakes at least twice, in 1766 and 1894. Each time the