Welcome to the "Sunken Palace". This was just a block or so from the Blue Mosque and it's easy to miss. The entrance is not grand or ornate in any way. Once you enter, you descend a staircase into this other world.
This was one of the highlights of Istanbul. Seeing this structure in person is impressive, trying to envision what this must have looked like thousands of years ago. It's mind blowing how large the columns are and the number of them, and there is only a small portion of the whole cistern open to the public.
A little history...
It's the largest of several hundred cisterns that lie beneath the city. There are 338 columns, each 30ft high. It is reported to have been built by over 7,000 slaves between the 3rd and 4th centuries.
These are the heads of Medusa. Some of the columns were relocated from other buildings and these two heads are probably no different. There is no record of where they originated but there are two theories as to why they are in the Cistern and in these positions. One theory is that they are oriented according to an old tradition that doing so wards off evil. But some believe it was more likely done in order to be the proper size to support the columns.
One last little tidbit...this is the Cistern that was used as a location for the 1963 James Bond film, From Russia with Love.
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