Byzantine Palace

The Sunday morning program for the symposium was a walking tour of the Old City of Istanbul conducted by one of the senior history professors at Istanbul Sehir University.  His knowledge of Byzantine and Ottoman history was vast, but more impressive was the collection of history scholars who were along.  Out of the twenty or so American and German participants, I was most likely the least credentialed historian in the group and probably knew the least about the subject matter that we were investigating.

[This picture is of our tour group at the Topkapi Palace later in the day.  Just about everyone was a specialist in Byzantine and Ottoman History.]

Our first stop was a section of the old wall by the Bosporus.  This part was actually the last remaining fragment of the old palace complex built in the time period right after Constantine moved the capital in 330 C.E. 

The windows that we saw were the windows that the emperors looked out onto the water for about 1100 years.   Where I stood to take the picture was water, and a small port was established in the location just to serve the palace complex. 

Almost all of the remains of the Byzantine palace complexes were destroyed centuries ago with the material recycled for other projects by the Ottomans.  This picture shows the only remaining part still somewhat intact.