Outside the Walls in Zeytinburnu, from Kazlıçeşme to Topkapı

Leave the Kazlıçeşme station of Marmaray and head for Abay Caddesi, formerly Demirhane Caddesi; the fountain stands on this street, a few minutes' walk from the station. According to Wikipedia, Demirhane Caddesi starts at the walls, runs towards Zeytinburnu station and splits the neighbourhood into two large parts. When you reach the fountain, first look at the facade as a whole: it is a single-fronted structure built of cut stone together with its cistern, and a niche with a flattened pointed arch opens in its rectangular face framed by mouldings. Look for the small rosette relief on the keystone of the arch, which is easy to miss at first glance. The marble inscription above the arch is not original; the old inscription seen in photographs from the 1930s and 1940s was lost, and today's inscription was written anew by a calligrapher during the restoration in the 2000s. The place you really need to look at is the mirror inside the niche. Below the thuluth inscription written in a cartouche of five lobes, the plump goose figure that gave the quarter its name stands on white marble, with a branch of star-shaped leaves in front of it. The date the inscription gives by the abjad reckoning is 953 of the Hijri calendar, that is 1546-1547, and the name of a Mehmed Bey appears as the builder of the fountain. This Mehmed Bey is thought to be the scholar Aşık Pir Mehmed Çelebi, who died in Skopje. The stone of the goose relief, however, is much older than the fountain. In 2002 treasure hunters broke the marble hoping to find gold; when the remaining fragments were examined, the stone turned out to be a Byzantine marble of the fifth century. When the pieces were turned over and joined, a christogram motif appeared, which means the Ottoman mason had turned the Byzantine stone upside down and carved the goose on its back. The marble was restored faithfully to its original in 2010. Evliya Çelebi, too, writes in his Book of Travels that he found the image of the goose beneath the arch of this fountain outside Yedikule too beautiful for words. On the stone surfaces at either side of the fountain there is a round-arched niche for a cup, and next to them a charity stone on each side; do not miss these either. Now look at the quarter behind you. As Wikipedia relates, after building the Yedikule fortress Sultan Mehmed II assigned this area outside the walls to butchers and the tanners' guild, and as many as 360 tanneries were set up in the area. Chandleries that made candles from the fat of slaughtered animals also grew up around this production. In the nineteenth century factories were added beside the traditional tanneries; the iron works founded in 1843 produced many goods, from pipes to ploughs and from swords to cloth. When some 200 leather factories closed and moved away in the 1990s, Kazlıçeşme stood empty for a long time, and it took on its present appearance with the transformation of the 2000s. Funda Budak's article in the journal of Marmara University examines this change the quarter went through from the conquest to the present through industrialisation and urban transformation. The goose relief is small; step close to the niche to see its detail, but do not touch the stones of the fountain. Half an hour is enough here; then follow the street east, towards the walls. Within a few minutes the towers of Yedikule begin to rise in front of you.

Source: Wikipedia, Kazlı Çeşme; Wikipedia, Kazlıçeşme; Zeytinburnu Kaymakamlığı, İlçemizin Tarihi; Budak, Marmara Üniversitesi Siyasal Bilimler Dergisi.

Coming from Kazlıçeşme, you approach the walls from outside, from their western face, and at this stop you look not at the inside of the fortress but at its outer face. First work out with your own eyes how the line of the walls was built. The land walls built in the reign of Theodosius II have three layers: innermost the thick main wall, in front of it a lower outer wall and at the very front a wide moat. The main wall is 4.5 to 6 metres thick and about 12 metres high, while the outer wall reaches a height of 8.5 to 9 metres. Note the red brick bands that run through the stonework; they are not only decoration, they strengthen the wall by bonding the stone face to the mortar core. The moat was more than 20 metres wide and in places 10 metres deep, and you can still make out the transverse walls inside it that divided it into compartments. Then turn your eyes to the Golden Gate. The Golden Gate, the ceremonial gate of Byzantium, was where the emperors entered the city on triumphal returns and on state occasions such as coronations. Who built the gate is disputed; scholars are divided between Theodosius I and Theodosius II, and the current majority view favours the latter. In the last centuries of Byzantium the openings of the gate were walled up and reduced; from outside you can still see the top of the great walled-up arch between the marble towers on either side. An engraving of 1685 shows that the outer gate was then decorated with relief panels; fragments of those sculptures are now in the Istanbul Archaeological Museums. In 1458 Sultan Mehmed II created the Yedikule fortress by adding three large towers to the four towers on the inner wall. The fortress lost its function as a gate and for much of the Ottoman period was used as a treasury, an archive and a state prison. Look also for the small Yedikule Gate right next to the fortress; scholars disagree on whether this gate between towers 11 and 12 is a Byzantine or an Ottoman structure. Now look at the foot of the walls, at the green strips around the moat and the road. According to the promotional site of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the Yedikule Market Gardens, which stretch at the foot of the walls between Mevlanakapı and Yedikule, are a living heritage where vegetables have been grown for more than 1,500 years. According to the sources Wikipedia cites, records from 1735 count 344 gardens, while a map of 1835 shows 102. Since these fields are still sown by families today, do not walk into them and be content with looking from the road. If you also want to see the inside of the fortress, check its current visiting status in official sources before you go; for years the fortress has gone through periods of restoration and controlled visits. This western face, seen from outside the walls, gets the sun in the afternoons; if light matters to you for photographs, you can also run the route in reverse. From here the longest walk of the route begins: keeping the walls on your right, walk north towards Belgradkapı. The road is a gentle climb, because after the Golden Gate the line of the walls turns north and climbs the city's seventh hill. As you pass Belgradkapı, Silivrikapı and Mevlanakapı, stop for a minute at each gate and try to make out the terrace between the outer wall and the main wall. You reach Topkapı after a walk of about three kilometres; if you get tired, bus MR11 runs in the same direction.

Source: Wikipedia, Walls of Constantinople; GoTürkiye, İstanbul Surları; Wikipedia, Yedikule; Wikipedia, Yedikule Zindanları.

When you reach Topkapı from outside the walls, the wide green area across the road is Topkapı Culture Park, and the museum stands inside this park. According to the museum's official site, this was until recently the site of the Thrace Bus Station; the park was created when the bus station moved away, and the museum opened to visitors in 2009. According to Wikipedia, work on the park began in 1999 and the park covers an area of 354 thousand square metres. Before entering the museum, stop in front of the door and look around you, because the museum's location is also part of the story. According to the official site, looking out from the spot where the museum stands, you see the walls of Edirnekapı on the left, the walls of Topkapı opposite and the walls of Silivrikapı on the right. Topkapı is the Byzantine Gate of Saint Romanus, and its Turkish name comes from the great cannon placed opposite it during the siege of 1453. Inside, the visit starts with an exhibition. This section, whose content was prepared by the historians Erhan Afyoncu and Coşkun Yılmaz, tells the story from the founding of the city through the siege and the conquest to the building works of Sultan Mehmed II with miniatures, engravings and pictures. Do not rush through the exhibition; the context of the scene you will see on the platform above is here. At the end of the exhibition you pass through a short, dark corridor and climb onto the platform of the panoramic painting. The painting was made on the inner surface of a hemisphere 38 metres in diameter and covers a two-dimensional area of 2,350 square metres. The 650-square-metre section between the painting and the platform is truly three-dimensional; here stand replicas of cannons, gun carriages and powder barrels. According to the official site, the painting has about 10 thousand figures, and the figures start at human size and grow smaller towards the horizon. In the very first moment on the platform, raise your head: the sky stretches without a break from the top of the painting in the form of a dome, so you cannot tell where the painting ends. The museum attributes the brief bewilderment visitors feel in these first moments to the painting having no starting or ending point. Then walk slowly round once and look at the breaches in the walls. According to Wikipedia, the ruined sections of the walls and their size were drawn on the basis of the report on repairing the walls submitted to Hızır Bey, the first prefect of Istanbul. The painting is the joint work of eight artists, begun in 2005 and finished in 2008, and the originator of the project is the painter and animation director Haşim Vatandaş. The official site writes that the artists deliberately chose to put into the painting even details that cannot be seen from 14 metres away; take a second round and look for these details among the nearer figures. The platform is not suitable for pushchairs, and you are asked to leave your pushchair at the entrance. The museum is closed on Mondays; check the current visiting hours and ticket information on its official site. On the way out, stroll a little in the park; the area around the pools is a good place to sit and rest. Then walk to the northern side of the park, towards the Takkeci İbrahim Ağa Mosque; the mosque is a few minutes away.

Source: Panorama 1453 Tarih Müzesi, Hakkımızda ve Ziyaret Bilgileri; Wikipedia, Panorama 1453 Tarih Müzesi; Wikipedia, Topkapı Parkı.

The mosque stands in Topkapı outside the walls, at the corner where the old Davutpaşa Caddesi, the Topkapı Cemetery and the E-5 highway meet; it is reached with a walk of a few minutes from the Panorama. According to the TDV Encyclopaedia of Islam, the building is also known as Takyeci İbrahim Çavuş, Arakiyeci İbrahim Ağa and Takkeci Camii. Its founder was Takkeci İbrahim Ağa, whose name comes from the caps called arakiye that he made for a living. Before entering the courtyard, look at the public water dispenser, the sebil, on the corner. According to its inscription, which is kept inside the mosque, this sebil, the oldest building of the complex, was built by İbrahim Ağa in 1578. The marble inscription of the fountain opposite the sebil says that it was added in 1820 by the Grand Vizier Derviş Mehmed Paşa; it is the last building added to the complex. The inscription over the mosque door shows that the building was finished in 1592, and the second sebil beside the eastern courtyard gate dates from 1593-1594. From outside you will notice how modest the mosque is: it is a small building with a hipped roof, walls of alternating stone and brick and a two-row portico resting on wooden posts. Count the eighteen outer and ten inner wooden posts of the portico; the TDV stresses that despite its modest size the mosque is important for its building technique and the richness of its interior, and that details hard to see in similar buildings can be followed easily here. The cut-stone minaret stands at the north-west corner; it has a square base, a sixteen-sided shaft and a single balcony. For your visit choose a time outside prayer times, take off your shoes, wear clothing that covers shoulders and knees, and keep quiet. When you go inside, the first thing to do is look up. According to the TDV, the wooden dome of about 5.5 metres in diameter covering the prayer hall cannot be seen from outside; it is hidden under the roof and sits on an octagonal drum with wooden muqarnas. The prayer hall is almost square in plan; the TDV gives its sides as about 11.2 and 11.7 metres and its height as about 6.2 metres. The gallery rests on ten wooden posts and runs along the whole north-west wall. Then turn to the walls. Nearly half of the wall surfaces are covered with sixteenth-century İznik tile panels made in the underglaze technique. Among the motifs you can pick out vine branches and bunches of grapes, a fruit tree in blossom, pomegranates, roses, tulips, carnations and violets; the colours used most are coral red, emerald green, blue and dark navy. Look especially at the coral red; according to Wikipedia, this colour was first used in the Süleymaniye Mosque, and the tiles here resemble those of the Rüstem Paşa and Sokollu Mehmed Paşa mosques in technique, colour and design. According to Wikipedia, the missing tiles of one of the two symmetrical panels are now in the Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon. Examine one by one the mihrab covered entirely with floral tiles, the finely worked marble minbar, the stained-glass windows and the original door made in the kündekari technique. One of the complex's two burial grounds is inside the mosque courtyard; in the burial ground behind the sebil stand the cenotaphs of İbrahim Ağa and his son Halil Çavuş. The TDV writes that the mosque was repaired in 1821 under Mahmud II, that pen-work on the wooden posts came to light during work by the General Directorate of Foundations in 1985, and that the building was thoroughly restored after 2005. For the return you can take the T1 tram from Topkapı, or take bus MR11 down to Kazlıçeşme and connect to Marmaray.

Source: TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi, Takkeci İbrahim Ağa Külliyesi; Wikipedia, Takkeci İbrahim Ağa Külliyesi.