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Istanbul · Mysteries & legends

Talismans, Medusas and weeping columns

Constantinople was a city of talismans: its people believed that statues and columns guarded the walls, kept snakes away or foretold the future. This route explores what's left of that magical world, above ground and below it, always separating what the documents say from what imagination added.

  • 5 stops
  • 1.7 km
  • 1 h 35 min
  • Free
Start with GPS Read about this stop 1
Medusa head set sideways at the base of a column in the Basilica Cistern

The route

Stop by stop

  1. 1 The Serpent ColumnThree intertwined bronze serpents that celebrated a Greek victory and ended up as a charm against snakebites.
  2. 2 The Binbirdirek CisternThe "cistern of a thousand and one columns" spent centuries forgotten beneath a neighbourhood that had no idea what lay underfoot.
  3. 3 The Burnt Column (Çemberlitaş)A porphyry pillar clasped by iron hoops, beneath which, tradition says, Constantine hid the holiest relics of the ancient world.
  4. 4 The Basilica Cistern and its MedusasA sunken palace of 336 columns, two Medusa heads set the wrong way round and a column that, so they say, weeps.
  5. 5 Hagia Sophia and the sweating columnA damp column credited with cures, and a priest who, legend says, walked into the wall in 1453 and will one day return.

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Start with GPS

Guide mode

Walk it with GPS.

Open guide mode on your phone: you’ll see your position and the distance to each stop, and we’ll let you know when you arrive. Then read or listen.

Start with GPS

  1. Turn on your location

  2. Walk to the spot

  3. Check the photo and listen

What you’ll discover

Talismans, Medusas and weeping columns

Talismans in stone and bronze

Columns that Byzantines and Ottomans credited with protective powers.

The city below

Two gigantic cisterns forgotten for centuries beneath the houses of Sultanahmet.

Record and tradition

Every legend comes with what we actually know, without spoiling the mystery.

Keep exploring

More routes in Istanbul

Back to Istanbul
HistoryFrom Byzantium to the Sublime Porte: fifteen centuries of power EssentialsFrom the Blue Mosque to Galata Tower