Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
perfectly successful, but after the fall of the city it had no further
military function, and the north tower was used as a prison, especially
for members of foreign embassies. The castle spans a steep valley with
two tall towers on opposite hills and a third at the bottom of the valley
at the water's edge, where stands the sea gate protected by a barbican.
A curtain wall, defended by three smaller towers, joins the three
major ones, forming an irregular figure some 250 metres long by 125
metres broad at its maximum. Fatih himself selected the site, drew
the general plan of the castle, and spent much time in supervising
the work of the 1,000 skilled and 2,000 unskilled workmen he had
collected from the various provinces of his empire. He entrusted each
of the three main towers to one of his vezirs: the north tower to
Saruca Paşa, the sea tower to Halil Paşa, his Grand Vezir, and the
south one to Zaganos Paşa, with the three of them striving with one
another to complete the work with speed and efficiency. Over the
door to the south tower an Arabic inscription records the completion
of the castle in the month of Recep A.H. 856 (July-August 1452); it
had been begun just four months previously. The castle was restored
in 1953, in connection with the celebration of the 500th anniversary
of the Conquest of Constantinople. Unfortunately the restoration
demolished the little village of picturesque wooden houses inside the
fortifications, but this was probably inevitable. The area inside has
been made into a charming park, and the circular cistern on which
once stood a small mosque (part of the minaret has been left to mark
its position) has been converted into the acting area of a Greek-type
theatre: here in summer productions of Shakespeare and other plays
are given against the stunning background of the castle walls and
towers, the Bosphorus, and the glittering lights of the villages of
Asia.
There are three mosques along the shore in Rumeli Hisarı. The first
of these that we see is Kayalar Mescidi, built in 1877 by Şeyh Ahmet
Niyazi Efendi to replace the mescit of the dervish tekke that had
been erected there in the second quarter of the seventeenth century.
The second is Hacı Kemalettin Camii, commissioned by Mahmut
I in 1743 to replace the original mescit from the time of Fatih. The
third is Pertev Ali Paşa Camii, at the foot of the main street in the
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