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Event details

name	Valens aqueduct bridge – Restoration and refurbishment (Mehmed II)
event type	Restoration
start date	1453
end date	1481
date comments	Date is based on the start and end of Mehmed's reign.
installations	Valens aqueduct bridge
persons	Mehmed II - Restorer (1444-1481)
description	After the conquest of 1453 by the Ottomans, Sultan Mehmed II immediately ordered repairs and refurbishments to be made. Regardless of what the state of the aqueduct bridge was before the new restoration, Al-Wardi still spoke highly of it before his death in 1457. He focused on installing forty fountains in the valley below the Valens aqueduct bridge, to which the renovated Ottoman system owes its name: the Forty Fountains (Kırkçeşme) Waterway. This refurbished waterway system also incorporated parts of the Hadrian Waterway, including the sources at Cebeciköy (see map at installation page). Tursun Bey (1453) praises the restorations extensively. Kritovoulos, Mehmed’s biographer, likewise praises ‘an abundance of water’. The repairs and adjustments of the Ottomans ensured that the higher part of the new Ottoman capital continued to be supplied with fresh water.
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Literature connected to this Event

#	Code	Page	Excerpt
1	Al-Wardi 1457	242	There is also a bridge there (Bozdoğan Kemeri), which belongs to the wonders of the world; it had a length that so astonished the reported in regard to his ability to describe it that he could be accused of lying about it.
2	Bey 1453	242	(After the conquest Sultan Mehmed began) to make provisions for the maintenance and increase of the population (of Constantinople). First, that the various foodstuffs should come in ample quantity in countless ships on water and in wagons by land from the towns and villages. For the sake of remedying the water shortage, however, he deigned to make inquiries. Now, in the time of Istanbul's blossoming, water had come from a distance of six or seven days' journey. The old lines were found. Breaking through the inside of the mountains, one had led these (lines) through these (mountains) and had a river from far away flow over water channels parallel to the level of the oil and built, by placing one arch of blocks of pure marble next to another, one aqueduct next to another. But under the influence of the weather and the change from day to night and night to day, the work had become completely dilapidated. The Sultan sent capable technicians to restore and renew the destroyed arches and collapsed tunnels, and probably also to furnish and strengthen them with lead. And in the neighbourhood of the line one found several waters, which he (the Sultan) had connected to the main line, so that he, diverting all the water of the (surrounding) rivulets, made a mighty river flow to the city, a river like the Tigris - In abundance like the tears of the lover In sweetness like the beloved friend - harmonious as the temperament of the Sultan and flowing pleasantly like the temple-locks of the loved-one, a water, which with the loveliness of its breeze makes enjoyment like darlings, and with the sweetness of its favour/grace satisfies the blood-coloured fire of the thirsty. Its channel-system is as heart warming as the expression of a stylist and the movement of its current is as powerful as the blood-stained tear. Such water he (the Sultan) therefore divided between his paradisiacal palace, the baths and the various city quarters. And in a suitable place at an aqueduct he made forty wells (Kirkçeşme). And in this place he built on the model of Haghia Sophia a great mosque (Ulu Cami) ... Comment by Crow 2008: For this Ottoman restoration see Çeçen (1991), 141; (1996), 33. Tursun Bey is referring to a group of fountains built by Mehmet just north of the Bozdoğan Kemeri, and the mosque appears to be the nearby Ulu Cami. These fountains were called the Kirkçeşme and were supplied by the springs in the Cebeciköy area. For the Kirkçeşme, see Dalman (1933), 11. For the location of the fountain, see Müller-Wiener (1977), 275. The fountain was demolished in 1943. For a photo, see Çeçen (1991), 29 or Çeçen (1996b), 175.
3	Kritovoulos 1470	105	(History of Mehmet the Conquerer 2.55) He (Mehmet II) also ordered them (the overseers of construction work) to construct splendid and costly baths and through aqueducts to bring into the City from the countryside an abundance of water. Many other such things he also ordered to be done for the building up and beautifying of the City, and for the benefit and needs and comfort of the inhabitants.
4	Müller-Wiener 1977	274