I'm happy to say that I visited the Underground cistern. At that time, about 30 years ago, it was a very rarely visited tourist spot. During the time my friend and I were there, we were literally alone!! It was magnificent and very eerie. The cistern was featured in one of the James Bond movies. The place is amazing, particularly if you like massive columns plundered from ancient buildings, which I do. Thanks for another fascinating video.
This videos always make me wonder what would be the best way to NOT have your monuments destroyed by the forces of future humanity? It seems like practical structures like aqueducts and cisterns survive best... I really wish the ancients made the stonework in those more beautiful and artistic so we could still see their handiwork. Temples in the middle of cities almost always get earthquaked or torn down for building material.
James Bond movies always seem to show unique locations. So be it for the 1963 movie "From Russia With Love," #2 in the Bond series. One scene shows the Basilica Cistern with Bond and his advisor cruising through it in a canoe. They were headed for the Russian Embassy I believe. One look convinced me then we were being shown a Roman Ruin, but it made no sense since the columns were surrounded by water!! The movie said nothing about the cistern I recall. Thanks for the video.
It was also featured in the Tom Hanks movie Inferno as the place where some environmental zealots wanted to release a deadly virus to kill off half of humanity to "save the planet".
We are going on a Mediterranean cruise in December, spending some time in Istanbul, as well as other ports o call, we shall use your informative videos as a guide in Italy, Greece, and Turkey
it’s still utterly impressive today the glory of ancient human imagination and invention never ceases to amaze We are no different than them. We are separated from the Byzantium world by only 15 lifetimes…
It's a shame there was never a chance to study the fish Petrus Gyllius reported seeing when the Basilica Cistern was rediscovered. It would be interesting to know how they adapted to living in the cave-like environment of the cistern.
Absolutely breathtaking history. The use of spolia is particularly interesting. Thanks Told in Stone for your eloquent speech and direct and engaging way of sharing this information!
In the last video you looked through a window and from a few arches and long pillars stretching down, I joked that you had found Khazad-Dûm (the City of Moria from Lord of the Rings). But oh my god this is the real deal!
You should write a guide book of ancient Rome’s structures that still exist and can be visited, not only in Rome, but in countries like Turkey, Tunisia, Spain, Croatia, etc.
I got to visit these during my stay, though most of it was closed for renovation when i was there. In beshiktas where i stayed, the further up the hill you got, the more aqueducts and waterway ruins dotted the busy metropolitan streets around you, its amazing. I wish i had learned the language so i could have been a better resident.
Wow, you stayed in an amazing neighborhood (my favorite actually) in Istanbul!! I taught English to university students in Turkey from 2013 to 2018 and I spent many nights with friends bar hopping in Besiktas district, plus the Naval Museum and the BJK football stadium is nearby! Great memories.
MORE PLEASE!!! Really I would love to see more of these sites, maps with travel paths would also be fantastic. So much knowledge had to have been lost to go from structures like that to water supply systems now.
You never saw this buildings for this times. They were fresh water depots, and no-one could not see this buildings, only authorized people. They are protected places. When Turks era, Turks never used standing water, for this reason they did not use this depots. A Turk proverb said: "You never aptes in the same water with two times."
I have a photo of the Basilica Cistern in my Wallpapers folder, but the photo doesn't provide much in the way of a sense of scale. It's very cool to be able to see video of the place with people walking around it so I can see how tall those columns actually are!
Brilliant and beautiful intelligent structures! I had dreams of these long before I knew they existed, they were so intense that I still remember, perhaps 40 years ago. In my dreams, there was more elaborate decorations and people were walking like here and other places.
thank you for staying true to live narration and not giving in to botvoice software. You have a pleasant and distinctive voice that meshes well with the content.
Thanks for another great video. Just wondering why they would have columns with such detail an ornamentation at the base if they were going to be under water? Thanks.
It seems like a waste, doesn't it? Apparently, Justinian's architects had access to quite a few elaborate columns from demolished buildings, and using them - even in a place where they would never be seen - was more economical that carving new ones.
I raise a goblet of Valensin festooned stem to ur voiceover capture when braving the traffic din, or the audio editor's art. 200 Roman active or ruins still surviving in all the earthquake activity!
Wow. I work for the public works in my city and we have underground reservoirs constructed in a very similar fashion from the early 20th century. Amazing how the basic engineering has not changed in 2000 years.
Wow i really really liked this one. Idk what did it for me. Maybe the background noise was such a bice touch? Excellent shots of the columns? I love old columns maybe that? Your voice sounded better in this one too imo, more refined, more confident. Idk i just loved the aesthetic and editing and voiceover, everything, great job in this one. Wish it was a little longer just because i love columns so much.
I just finishe listning to insane emperors on auible. i couldnt review it But 5 out of 5 stars from me. The monitary and mining chapters, was great as well as the last 3ed of the book was right in my alley tho i thought there was some Egyptian writing about atlantis that was left missing. like where the greeks got them from. i believe it was solon or something like that who gave the myhts to plato.
yeah but how did they build that? by hand? they dug down that deep then moved massive pillars? they were able to make those brick arches? i cant wrap my head around it
@@tulayk2515 I understood that it remained Constantinople (although pronounced in a Turkish manner) until 1922 when the new republic under Mustafa Kemal changed the name of the city to Istanbul.
@@Dave_Sisson Constantinople, as it was called during the Byzantine period; After the conquest of the Ottoman sultan Mehmet the Conqueror in 1453, it was called by different names such as Kostantiniyye, Dersaadet, Istanbul. The most used of these for official purposes is Kostantiniyye.
