Reservoir of Aspar - Addition cylindrical tower

Construction

990

1000

The structure was built of alternating bands of brick and stone, which were not of similar heights to the bands in the walls of the reservoir itself, suggesting that is was an added structure. The stone bands contained occasional vertical bricks, a technique that suggests a Middle Byzantine date, probably after the late tenth century (Crow et al., 2008, p. 131).

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A cylindrical tower capped by a semi-dome in the north corner of the reservoir. It also contains putlog (scaffold) holes. However, unlike the Fildamı tower, this tower has no indication of the existence of an internal cylindrical chamber. Excavations made to a depth of 5,5 m below present ground-level revealed no channels. It is unclear how the reservoir of Aspar (and Aetius) reduced the water pressure in their earliest outflow systems.

The tower presumably served to reduce the pressure of water exiting the reservoir, but the absence of channels at the bottom and the spiral staircase in the outer chamber like Fildamı makes this identification less certain (Crow et al., 2008, p. 131. The tower was built beside the north-west wall of the reservoir, and if the location is significant, it is possible that the water was used to supply the north-west of the city, that is, the area around the Blachernai Palace (Crow et al., 2008, p. 131).

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