Today we visited two sites that were both entrances to Constantinople and therefore nodes within the Golden Matrix node of Constantinople. The ideas that we have been studying in the Golden Matrix passed through either the Golden Gate or through the Port of Theodosius. The Golden Gate was once a decorative arch outside the city, but was later transformed into a gate as the city grew. The gate was monumental. It was easy to imagine Justinian coming into the city triumphant after a conquest. The Gate was built as a key part of the Theodosian walls in 408. These walls stood undefeated for over one thousand years. After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the invading Ottomans could not find the body of Constantine XI, the last Emperor.
There was a legend that eventually Constantine XI would return through the Golden Gate and recapture the city. To thwart this, or at least the defeated Byzantines, Sultan Mehmet II blocked the gate and added three towers to the four existing towers at the Gate. Thus it is also called the “Fortress of the Seven Towers.” The Fortress later also served as a dungeon, and is known to many as the “Dark Dungeon.” The Gate and subsequent Fortress have played a pivotal role in the history of this city. Our group went to the site to examine the glory of early Byzantium as well as the transition between Byzantine and Ottoman rule of Constantinople/Istanbul. The site was well preserved yet au naturale; it was private and therefore off the beaten path. We walked on the walls and explored the many passages inside the towers. I was very impressed by the scale of the site as well as the well-preserved state of it compared to other Byzantine structures in the city.
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After our visit to the Golden Gate, we went to the Port of Theodosius Excavation Site. It is the future home of two subway stations: one to the Asian side of the city across the Bosphorus, and the other as an extension of the city metro. However, before the project can be completed, the archaeologists need to do their due diligence. They have been doing this due diligence since 2004. In their excavations, they have uncovered thirty-five shipwrecks and countless pieces of ceramics. It is a tremendous undertaking: not only is the site very large, but there are tens of layers of history to uncover. Just six inches under the 6th century there was another layer of artifacts from the 5th century. Texts of Aristotle, Plato, Galen, and others were brought in and out of the port along with the goods being traded around the Mediterranean world. Trade was the lifeblood of the Golden Matrix; it facilitated the transfer of knowledge from Greece to Italy by way of Constantinople, Alexandria, Baghdad, and Cordoba. The manager of the excavation led us around the site. He had a particular interest in prehistory, and told us of several prehistoric cultures and their burial rituals. We ended our tour by stopping in their processing area. There workers sorted, washed, and catalogued artifacts. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to photograph or film at the site. Getting permission to even go was hard enough; we obtained the necessary permission just a few hours before our arrival. Nevertheless, the site was amazing and pertained very closely to our mission.
Noah
The man who toured us around the archeological site was wearing a grey coat. The sun shone brightly for the first ten minutes, then clouds covered the light. A dark tone vibrated over the site. We saw the process of uncovering years of soil. They were left with the garbage, the remnants of once so sophisticated civilizations. Time and history become diluted into small ceramic pieces. Like a puzzle we put them together and make inferences. We see similarities and differences. We base these inferences on our civilization because we have nothing else to base it on.
Beautiful boat. Submerged under rock and soil. Covered by time and sediments. Uncovered by archeologists.
Amazing to see the process of history. How we find out so much about who we are and what we are. One could say the early Byzantines are a pile of old ceramic pieces. The early Ottomans now only a few examples of architecture. And the city, Istanbul, a combination of all of this. The years and years of dust and sediment. All encompassing people, culture, traditions, philosophy, mathematics, science, technology, rhetoric, and above all the most powerful and complicated thing, human thought and emotion.
David
Both of today’s visits were incredible. The dark dungeon was one of the most massive structures I’ve ever been in. Though the bricks literally were crumbling beneath my hands, there was still a sense of power and grandiosity that surely would have been even more impressive to visitors approaching the city five hundred years ago.
The Port of Theodosius excavation was a very special treat. We were walking across what had been the sea floor in the 5th century! It was littered with pot shards and shells of creatures that had died 1500 years ago. Somehow, I resisted the temptation to take a piece of amphora with me. Most impressive of all were the shipwrecks, miraculously preserved in the mud since the time of the Byzantines, filled with critical clues to classical trade and daily life. There’s so much more of the site to excavate; surely, whole books-worth of fascinating information are waiting to be discovered.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7820924.stm
Emily
The Seven Towers of Istanbul, which we visited today, was one of the most impressive sites we’ve visited so far. Many different rulers built the walls at different time periods; some parts were up to 1600 years old. A slight touch makes the wall crumble; you can feel the history. This piece of land is not a normal tourist attraction, which means that there is no glass, no railings, nothing stopping you from connecting with the energy that is in that space.
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