As Rome was traditionally founded on seven hills, so seven hills have been identified within the Theodosian Walls of Constantinople, New Rome.
The theme of seven hills is found in Turkish culture today, as for example in
- the clothing company called Sevenhill,
- the university on the Asian side of Istanbul called Yeditepe (i.e. Seven Hills).
This is about a tour in 2013, roughly following part of the chapter called “The Seventh Hill” in Sumner-Boyd and Freely, Strolling Through Istanbul (revised and updated edition, London & New York: I.B. Tauris, 2010). There are no really spectacular sites along the tour. This fact itself makes the tour remarkable: it shows how many interesting things lie beyond the main tourist centers of the city.
Here is a Google map I made of the sites visited.
I created this post originally, not long after the tour it describes; however, I posted it on my departmental website, although this blog did exist in those days too. I last edited the post on the departmental site, Monday, July 2, 2018. I return to it now because of friends’ interest in Byzantine sites in Istanbul (also I have completed the posts about the books of the Iliad that began in November).
As I said, the sites visited here are not spectacular, but they may still be remarkable. The Byzantine ones are:
- the Column of Arcadius;
- Koca Mustafa Pasha Mosque (formerly the Church of St Andrew by the Judgment).
See also a later post, “Samatya Tour, July, 2018,” for more in this area, including
- İmrahor Mosque (Monastery of Stoudios).
On Sunday, March 24, 2013, my friend Cédric and I took the tram to Aksaray. We passed under an elevated boulevard to reach Valide Sultan Camii, constructed in the late nineteenth century, in the twilight years of the Ottoman Empire.
Polytropy 