Versão Do Nero 66019

The Basilica Cistern of Constantinople

And the winner of the question this week is Pfunes .

Congratulations, gallifante already has an owner.

What we see in the picture is the base of a column from the Basilica Cistern (Turkish Yerebatan Sarayi "Sunken Palace", or Yerebatan Sarnici "Sunken Tanker" ).

is the largest of the 60 ancient cisterns built under the city of Istanbul in Turkey during the Byzantine era.

is located one hundred meters southwest of the Hagia Sophia in the historic peninsula Sarayburnu. It was built in a few months in the year 532, during the reign of Emperor Justinian I (527 - 565).

The cistern was built to avoid the vulnerability that meant for the city that was destroyed during a siege of the Aqueduct of Valens.

The tank supplied water to the Great Palace of Constantinople and other buildings in the Capitol, and continued to provide water Topkapı Palace after the Ottoman conquest in 1453.

The palace gardens were irrigated with water from the tank until it built its own system.

Ottomans who preferred running water stored water so it was discontinued at the end of the fourteenth century.

the middle of the sixteenth century Dutch researcher P. Gyllus (who was in the city between 1544 and 1550) discovered the existence of the tank after investigating the accounts of neighbors who stated that some houses had holes in the basement of which draw water and sometimes fish.

Gyllus discovered the stairs access and a study on the monument which he published in his book of travels. A mid-nineteenth century was restored after being used as a lumberyard.

This tank the size of a cathedral is an underground chamber of approximately 143 meters by 65 meters - about 9,800 m2 - able to accommodate 80,000 m3 of water.

The roof is supported by a forest of 336 marble columns, of about 9 feet high, arranged in 12 rows of 28 columns 4.8 meters apart.

The columns were brought to Constantinople from pagan temples in Anatolia, together with those used in the construction of Hagia Sophia.

Returning to our contest, which displays the photo in particular is the basis of one of the two columns that reused blocks carved with the face of Medusa.

The origin of the two heads is unknown, it is believed that the heads were brought into the cistern after being removed from a building in the late Roman period.

As a curiosity, tradition says that the blocks are oriented sideways and upside down in order to nullify the power of the gaze of the Gorgon leaving who dares to look petrified.

The truth is that bear full of correct answers of the questions that so we have to raise the level, the question this week is a little more difiil.

Luck and the gallifante.