BASILICA CISTERN

(Istanbul, Turkey Underground Water)

SUBMITTED TO:
ENGR. CONRADO EDILLO JR.

PREPARED BY:
TANQUEZON, MERY JOY E.
EDONG, HANNAH L.
BACALSO, RECHIE JULS
BISAYA
 BASILICA CISTERN
Hidden beneath the city of Istanbul (Constantinople), Turkey, are hundreds of ancient cisterns
that stored and supplied water to its inhabitants in the ancient past. The largest of these is the
Basilica Cistern. So spectacular is the cistern that one could easily mistake it for a sacred
subterranean temple.
The Basilica Cistern is located just 150m southwest of the famous Haghia Sophia, and was built
by the Byzantine emperor, Justinian I, in A.D. 532. This cistern is 138 m in length and 64.6 m in
width, covering an area of almost 1,000 square metres. This cistern is capable of holding up to
80,000 cubic metres of water.
An incredible work effort went into its construction, with 336 marble columns supporting the
structure, each measuring 9m in height, and arranged in 12 rows of 28 columns each divided by a
distance of 4.9m. It is said that the majority of these columns were recycled from older buildings
(a process known as ‘spoliation’), possibly brought to what was then Constantinople from the
various parts of the Byzantine Empire, as well as those used for the construction of the Hagia
Sophia. This recycling of columns may have been done to save cost, or to give the cistern a boost
of prestige. Perhaps the most iconic example of spoliation is the re-use of the heads of Medusa as
the bases of two columns located in the northwest corner of the cistern. According to tradition,
the heads were oriented sideways and inverted to counter the power of Medusa’s deadly gaze,
though it is more likely these orientations provided the proper sizes to support the columns.
It may be pointed out that the name of this cistern is derived from the fact that it stands under the
site where a Roman basilica (a large, open, public building where business or legal transactions
could be carried out) once stood. This basilica is believed to have been built sometime in the
3 rd or 4 th centuries B.C. After Constantinople was devastated by the Nika riots of A.D. 532, the
Basilica Cistern was part of the Emperor Justinan’s rebuilding project. The basilica, however,
unlike the cistern, no longer exists today.

Although the Basilica Cistern is a popular tourist destination today, it was not always so. In fact,
sometime before the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453, the Basilica Cistern was
closed, and seemed to have been forgotten by the city authorities. It was about a century later that
the cistern was re-discovered. In 1545, the French scholar, Petrus Gyllius was in Constantinople
researching Byzantine antiquities. He was told by local residents that they could obtain water by
lowering buckets in their basement floors. Some even claimed that they could catch fish this way.
Gyllius decided to explore the neighbourhood, and managed to access the cistern through the
basement of one of the houses in that area. Nevertheless, the Ottoman authorities did not seem
to take note of this discovery, as the cistern became a rubbish dump. It has, however, been
restored thrice since then. In the late 1980s, the silted-in floor was dredged, and added lighting,
elevated walkways, and a café were added for the convenience of visitors. Although the cistern
holds only a small amount of water today, fish can still be found in it, so as to keep the water
clear.

MEASUREMENTS AND DATA

This cathedral-size cistern is an underground chamber approximately 138 metres (453 ft) by 65
metres (213 ft) about 9,800 square metres (105,000 sq ft) in area – capable of holding 80,000
cubic metres (2,800,000 cu ft) of water] The ceiling is supported by a forest of
336 marble columns, each 9 metres (30 ft) high, arranged in 12 rows of 28 columns each spaced 5
metres (16 ft) apart. The capitals of the columns are mainly Ionic and Corinthian styles, with the
exception of a few Doric style with no engravings. One of the columns is engraved with raised
pictures of a Hen's Eye, slanted braches, and tears. This column resembles the columns of
the Triumphal Arch of Theodosius I from the 4th century (AD 379–395), erected in the 'Forum
Tauri' Square. Ancient texts suggest that the tears on the column pay tribute to the hundreds of
slaves who died during the construction of the Basilica Cistern. The majority of the columns in
the cistern appear to have been recycled from the ruins of older buildings (a process
called 'spoliation'), likely brought to Constantinople from various parts of the empire, together
with those that were used in the construction of Hagia Sophia. They are carved and engraved out
of various types of marble and granite.]
Fifty-two stone steps descend into the entrance of the cistern. The cistern is surrounded by
a firebrick wall with a thickness of 4 metres (13 ft) and coated with a waterproofing mortar. The
Basilica Cistern's water came from the Eğrikapı Water Distribution Center in the Belgrade
Forest, which lie 19 kilometres (12 mi) north of the city. It traveled through the 971-metre-long
(3,186 ft) Valens (Bozdoğan) Aqueduct, and the 115-metre-long (377 ft) Mağlova Aqueduct,
which was built by the Emperor Justinian.

MEDUSA COLUMN BASE

Located in the northwest corner of the cistern, the bases of two columns reuse blocks carved with
the visage of Medusa. The origin of the two heads is unknown, though it is thought that the heads
were brought to the cistern after being removed from a building of the late Roman period. There
is no written evidence that suggests they were used as column pedestals previously. Tradition has
it that the blocks are oriented sideways and inverted in order to negate the power of the Gorgons'
gaze; however, it is widely thought that one was placed sideways only to be the proper size to
support the column. The upside-down Medusa was placed that way specifically because she
would be the same height right side up

RESTORATION
The Basilica Cistern has undergone several restorations since its foundation. The first of the
repairs were carried out twice during the Ottoman State in the 18th century during the reign
of Ahmed III in 1723 by the architect Muhammad Agha of Kayseri. The second major repair was
completed during the 19th century during the reign of Sultan Abdulhamid II (1876–1909).
Cracks to masonry and damaged columns were repaired in 1968, with additional restoration in
1985 by the Istanbul Metropolitan Museum. During the 1985 restoration, 50,000 tons of mud
were removed from the cisterns, and platforms built throughout to replace the boats once used to
tour the cistern. The cistern was opened to the public in its current condition on 9 September
1987. In May 1994, the cistern underwent additional cleaning.

DISTRIBUTING THE WATER

In the Byzantine period, there were five distribution chambers, from which pipes carried water to
the city’s cisterns and from there to fountains and palaces. In the Ottoman period a number of
stone towers were used to adjust water pressure and flow. (There is one outside the Divan Hotel
at Taksim and another at Sultanahmet across from the Byzantine-era Basilica Cistern.) Aqueducts
were repaired and extended.

The pipes that carried the water might be made of baked clay or lead although the latter was
better since it could handle water under pressure more easily but was also more expensive.

Purifying the water was carried out by moving the water from one tank to another and letting it
stand. That way many of the impurities would sink to the bottom before it was piped elsewhere.
The cistern subsequently supplied Topkapı Palace with water under the Ottomans. The water
came in part from the Aqueduct of Valens and in part from rainfall. It has been conjectured that
the water currently entering the structure is leaking from the city’s water pipes. Not far away is the
even earlier cistern called Binbir Direk (One Thousand and One) Cistern that dates from the
time of the Emperor Constantine in the fourth century A.D. It has 224 columns in an area of
3,584 square meters (64 x 56m).
IN POP CULTURE
 The cistern was used as a location for the 1963 James Bond film From Russia with Love. In
the film, it is referred to as being constructed by the Emperor Constantine, with no reference
to Justinian, and is located under the Soviet consulate. Its real-life location is a considerable
distance from the former Soviet (now Russian) consulate, which is in the "newer" European
section of Istanbul, on the other side of the Golden Horn.
 In 1969 the cistern was used as a setting in Pawn in Frankincense, the fourth of the Lymond
Chronicles books by Dorothy Dunnett.
 The finale of the 2009 film The International takes place in a fantasy amalgam of the Old
City, depicting the Basilica Cistern as lying beneath the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, which, in the
film, is directly adjacent to the Süleymaniye Mosque.
 The cistern is featured in Clive and Dirk Cussler's 2010 Dirk Pitt fiction novel, Crescent
Dawn and The Navigator.
 In the 2011 video game, Assassin's Creed: Revelations, the player controlled character, Ezio
Auditore, is given the chance to explore a section of this cistern in a memory sequence
entitled The Yerebatan Cistern.
 The cistern is also featured in Jean-Baptiste Andrea's film thriller Brotherhood of
Tears (2013). In the sequence, the lead character, acting as a transporter (played by Jeremie
Renier), delivers a suitcase to a mysterious client (played by Turkish actor Ali Pinar).The
cistern with its inverted Medusa pillar featured in the 2013 Dan Brown novel Inferno (as well
as its 2016 film adaptation).
 In the young adult Marvel novel Black Widow: Forever Red by Margaret Stohl, published
in October 2015, the climactic scenes take place in the cistern and in a secret lab hidden
behind it.
 In the historical novel Eight Pointed Cross by Maltese-Canadian Author Marthese Fenech,
the cistern is featured is scenes set in 16th century Istanbul