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Installation details

english name	Basilica Cistern
turkish name	Yerebatan Sarnıcı or Sarayı
original name	Βασιλική Κινστέρνα
ottoman name	-
events	Construction 527 - 541Rediscovery 1545 - 1550Restoration 1723 - 1723Restoration 1876 - 1909Restoration 1985 - 1987Change of function 1987 - 2026Restoration 2017 - 2022
event persons	Petrus Gyllius (Pierre Gilles) - Discoverer, Justinian - Founder (527-565), Longinus - Builder (537-541), Ahmed III - Restorer (1703-1730), Abdul Hamid II - Restorer (1876-1909)
purposes	Storage, Supply
still exists	Yes
type	Cistern (underground)
location	-
description	The Basilica Cistern measures 138 × 64.4 meters, holding about 80,000 tons of water. It features 336 columns, each 9 meters high and spaced 4.8 meters apart in a 12 × 28 grid. The cross vaults, built with square bricks (38–40 cm wide, 4 cm thick) and water-resistant Khorasan mortar, rest on these columns. The floor is tiled with baked bricks (40 × 40 cm), and the corners are rounded to resist inward pressure. While water was likely drawn through shafts, stairs were also provided for maintenance. The cistern’s columns display a mix of reused capitals: mostly plain basket capitals, 98 acanthus capitals, and 3 Corinthian capitals (possibly dating to 200 CE or Constantine). Notably, it includes a 4th-century column shaft with a lopped branch design and two inverted Medusa heads, possibly from the Severan period. Built by Justinian in the 6th century, the cistern is elevated 30 meters above sea level and was connected to the Hadrianic water line near the imperial palace. Today, it is a popular tourist attraction and museum, with a water level maintained at about 1 meter and a visitor platform.
comments	The underground Basilica cistern/Yerebatan Sarayı ("Subterranean Palace") is not to be confused with the overground Stoa Basilica that housed the basilica (building), courtyard and university. Müller-Wiener (1977) refers to both indiscriminately as "Basilica" (with the exception that he specifically starts to refer to the "cistern" under 7./10.Jhr.).
systems	Hadrian Waterway
external	-

The Basilica Cistern in 1838.

A drawing of the Basilica Cistern in 1836.

The Basilica Cistern in 1794.

Test description.

One of the modern artworks in the cistern.

geojson image

Map of the Basilica cistern and the building remains found near it Müller-Wiener 1977 p .285 Fig. 323

View inside the Basilica Cistern Müller-Wiener 1977 p. 284 Fig. 322

Literature of related events

#	Event	Code	Type	Page	Excerpt
1	Construction: 527	Cedrenus 1050	Primary source	232	(History, ed. Bekker 1.610) He (Justinian) also completed the interior of the imperial cistern (basilike kinsterna) of Illus, which he furthermore enlarged, and the bath (loutron) of Dagisteus, which Anastasius had begun.
2	Construction: 527	Chronicon Paschale 641 Whitby	Primary source	110	(Dindorf 618-19) The same emperor (Justinian I) also completed the public bath, the one in the quarter of Dagistheus, which Anastasius the emperor had formerly begun to build in Constantinople. And the same emperor also made the central court of the Basilica of Illus a great cistern, wishing to send into it the water from the Hadrianic aqueduct. The same emperor restored this aqueduct, which had formerly been constructed by emperor Hadrian for the Byzantines to supply water before Byzantium had a water supply. Comment by Crow 2008: Compare Cedrenus, History 1.645.
3	Construction: 527	Crow, Bardill & Bayliss 2008	Secundary literature	17-19, 114	p. 17 Written sources for the long reign of Justinian reveal continuing activity on the aqueducts and cisterns, but more especially provide crucial details about specific features of the system within and outside the city. After the disastrous fire following the Nika riot in 532, a number of major buildings were rebuilt, including the Haghia Sophia, and according to the Chronicon Paschale, ‘he [Justinian] built inside the palace bakeries and granaries for the storage of grain; likewise too a cistern for water in case of popular crises’. (…) The construction of the Basilica Cistern, now the Yerebatan Sarayi, reveals a great deal about the water supply and distribution within the city. Located beneath a public building, it reveals some of the problems of acquiring a large public space in the crowded eastern end of the city. If the start of the work in 526 is correct, the project was possibly not completed until 541 when Malalas records that the city prefect Longinus repaved the open courtyard and constructed the colonnades. Malalas and the Chronicon Paschale also record that the cistern was filled by the aqueduct of Hadrian, noting as well that Justinian also rebuilt the city’s aqueduct. p. 114 Thus regarding the Yerebatan Sarayi (Justinian’s Basilica Cistern)… To which may be added Gilles’ comments about the same cistern, ‘There is an abundance of wells that empty into the Cistern… This Cistern stands west of the Church of St Sophia a distance of eighty Roman paces’.
4	Construction: 527	Malalas 565	Primary source	252	(Chronicle 18.17) The emperor (Justinian I) also completed the public bath in Constantinople known as Dagitheos', which the emperor Anastasios had begun to build. He built the central hall of the Basilican cistern (436), intending to bring the water of Hadrian's aqueduct into it. He also reconstructed the city's aqueduct (i.e. the supply line of Valens).
5	Construction: 527	Malalas 565	Primary source	286	(Chronicle 18.91) In that year (541/2) Longinus was appointed city prefect. He paved the central hall of the Basilican cistern. He also built the colonnades of the Basilica (above the cistern) magnificently. Comment by Crow 2008: This appears to mean that he repaved the area above the cistern so as to restore the public space.
6	Construction: 527	Parastaseis Syntomoi Chronikai 829	Primary source	153-155	(Parastaseis Syntomoi Chronikai 73-4) 73 The Constantinianai were built by Constantine the Great, as was the so-called Fossa. There were many remarkable statues in the Constantinianai which have been destroyed. 74 ... the cistern of the Basilica (was built) by Constantine the Great, the Chrysorrhoe by Licinius (308-324) at the order of Constantine. The loss of the statues in the baths at Constantinianai (Constantianai) probably indicates that the baths themselves were no longer in use by the time this text was written (c. 800) The Chrysorrhoe is unlikely to have been a cistern, contrary to Janin (1964), 2012.
7	Construction: 527	Patria 990	Primary source	223	(Patria 2.40) About the imperial cistern (basilike kinsterna): the so-called imperial cistern was built by the great Constantine. Comment by Crow 2008: In fact, the cistern was built by Justinian I.
8	Construction: 527	Procopius 550 Dewing Downey	Primary source	91-92	(Buildings 1.11.10-15) As one sails from the Propontis up towards the eastern side of the city, there is on the left a public bath. This is called the Arcadianae, and it is an ornament to Constantinople, large as the city is. There this Emperor (Justinian) built a court which lies outside the city, and it is always open to those who tarry there for promenades and to those who anchor there as they are sailing by ... I shall now describe the labours which were carried out here by this Emperor (Justinian I) to ensure an abundant water-supply. In the summer season the imperial city used to suffer from scarcity of water as a general thing, though at the other seasons it enjoyed a sufficiency. Because that period always brings droughts, the springs, running less freely than at the other seasons, used to deliver through the conduits a less abundant flow of water to the city. Wherefore the Emperor devised the following plan. At the Imperial Portico, where the lawyers and prosecutors prepare their cases, as well as all others who are concerned with such matters, there is a certain very large court, very long, and broad in proportion, surrounded by columns on the four sides, not set upon a foundation of earth by those who constructed it, but built upon living rock. Four colonaded stoas surround the court, standing one on each side. Excavating to a great depth this court and one of the stoas (that which faces toward the south), the Emperor Justinian made a suitable storage reservoir for the summer season, to contain the water which had been wasted because of its very abundance during the other seasons. For receiving this overflow of the aqueduct when its stream is spilling over, this cistern both furnishes a place for the water which for the moment can find no space, and provides a supply for those who need it when water becomes scarce. Thus the Emperor Justinian made provision that the people of Byzantium should not be in want of fresh water.
9	Construction: 527	Theophanes 814	Primary source	267	(Chronicle AM 6020) The same emperor (Justinian I) completed the public bath in the quarter of Dagistheos, which the emperor Anastasios had begun, and also made the inner court of the basilica of Illos into a large cistern.
10	Rediscovery: 1545	Clavijo 1403	Primary source	76	There are many cellars and cisterns and chambers below ground in Santa Sophia which are wrought in a fashion that is very marvellous to behold, also we saw many houses with other outbuildings round and about, but these for the most part are already falling to decay. The outer walls here are all in ruin, and various doorways that lead into the church have recently been walled up or are blocked by fall of stones. But indeed they say (that of old) the outer circuit of the church buildings enclosed a space that measured ten of miles round. There is in Santa Sophia underground an immense cistern, holding much water, and it is stated to be so large that a hundred galleys might easily float in it. All these marvels that we have spoken of, we were shown in this church of Santa Sophia with many others, and they are so innumerable that it was impossible in brief to describe all, or even to enumerate the greater part. Comment by Crow 2008: See also van der Vin (1980), 632-3. Dagron (1984b), 282-3 believes Clavijo is referring to the Yerebatan Sarayı cistern, which was a short distance to the west of, but not underneath, Haghia Sophia. The tradition of a cistern beneath the church, he suggests, may have had scriptural and cosmological origins, 'celle d'une église non plus surge d'un terrain fertile, mass descend our one plate-forms flottante.' Yet in addition Buondelmonti, Pero Tafur and, more importantly, Covel refer to such a cistern beneath Haghia Sophia.
11	Rediscovery: 1545	Gilles 1561 Ball	Primary source	111-112	(De Topographia Constantinopoleos 2.20) The Imperial Portico is not to be seen, though the Cistern remains. Through the inhabitants' carelessness and contempt for everything that is curious it was never discovered except by me, who was a stranger among them, after a long and diligent search for it. The whole area was built over, which made it less suspected that there was a cistern there. The people had not the least suspicion of it, although they daily drew their water out of the wells that were sunk into it. By chance I went into a house where there was a way down into it and went aboard a little skiff. I discovered it after the master of the house lit some torches and rowed me here and there across through the pillars, which lay very deep in water. He was very intent upon catching his fish, with which the Cistern abounds, and speared some of them by the light of the torches. There is also a small light that descends from the mouth of the well and reflects on the water, where the fish usually come for air. This Cistern is three hundred and thirty-six feet long, a hundred and eighty-two feet broad, and two hundred and twenty-four Roman paces in circumference. The roof, arches, and sides are all brickwork covered with terracotta, which is not the least impaired by time. The roof is supported by three hundred and thirty-six marble pillars. The space of the intercolumniation is twelve feet. Each pillar is over forty feet, nine inches high. They stand lengthwise in twelve ranges, and broadways in twenty-eight. Their capitals are partly finished in the Corinthian style, and part of them are unfinished. Over the abacus of every pillar is placed a large stone, which seems to be another abacus that supports four arches. There is an abundance of wells that empty into the Cistern. When it was filling in the winter time I saw a large stream of water falling from a great pipe with a mighty noise until the pillars were covered with water up to the middle of the capitals. This Cistern stands west of the Church of St Sophia distance of eighty Roman paces. Comment by Crow 2008: Gilles account of the Basilica Cistern (Yerebatan Sarayı) presents one of the most evocative descriptions of the Byzantine water supply system; see the translations and discussions of this passage by Byrd (2002) and Gilles (2007), 357-9.
12	Restoration: 1723	Müller-Wiener 1977	Secundary literature	284	Die Gewölbedecke bricht zwar einzelnen Stellen von Zeit zu Zeit ein und wird geflickt; auch werden 1723/1135 H ach Pfeiler repariert.