Photographs of Yerebatan Saray Sarnici

Click on an image to see the full picture

Beneath Istanbul lie hundreds of gloomy Byzantine cisterns. They have been there since the days of Constantinople. The grandest of all is Yerebatan Saray Sarnici, called the Sunken Palace because of its size (70 x 140 meters, or 2.4 acres), its capacity (80,000 cubic meters--over 21 million US gallons) and its 336 marble columns. Some of the columns have been reused from roman remains, see the heads in these two photographs.
Walkways and atmospheric lighting were installed during the 1990s so you can see all its curious corners. Unfortunately they do have a tendency to make everything look red when not using a flash.