The Land Walls of Constantinople (part 2)

Hello everyone, I'm Robin Pearson and I'm here to show you what remains of the Byzantine land walls in Istanbul. This is our second video covering the land walls. If you haven't seen part one, then check it out now. In that video, we walk north from the Sea of Marmara to halfway along the circuit. In part two, we're going to complete our survey of the walls as we continue north all the way to the Golden Horn. We resume our walk on the other side of Turgut Ozil Millet Kedesi, the road which cuts through the land walls halfway along our journey. We are again on the lookout for fragments of Byzantine inscriptions and decoration. Up on this tower here, you can just see two crosses either side of the window and above them, fragments of an inscription installed by Leo IV in the 8th century. Soon, you'll be at our next major gate, which you can see has been heavily restored. Why? Because it was near here that the Ottomans placed the huge cannon, which they used to punch a hole in the walls and capture the city in 1453. To the Byzantines, this was the Gate of Saint Romanus, but to the Turks, it became Topkapi, Cannon Gate. You can see the inscription here, which reads, On Tuesday morning, May 29th, 1453, the Conqueror's army entered Istanbul through a hole that the cannons opened in this region. If we look ahead along the walls, you can see why this spot was chosen for the final attack. The land here slopes down into the valley of the river Lycus. The river dried up long ago, but its path is now marked by that highway into the city. Here is a view from the opposite vantage point, up on Edirnekapi. You can see the same highway in the middle of the frame there. As you can see, the land dips significantly in this area, making it the only spot in the entire circuit where a besieging army could shoot down on the defenders on the walls. It was here that the Avars attempted to storm the walls back in 626 AD, and Mehmed II chose the same spot in 1453. Once we've crossed the highway, you can see that most of the towers along this section are in ruins, and restoration has been needed just to preserve where the inner wall would once have stood, such was the battering this area took from the Ottoman attack. Somewhere along this segment of the walls, the final breach was made, and according to the histories, the last Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI, was seen here for the final time before disappearing into the fighting. Next we come to the 5th military gate, which is still standing, and still bears an inscription from one of Theodosius II's officials, Puseus, who would like you to take note that he also helped build the wall, it wasn't all Anthemius the Praetorian Prefect. The inscription says, with a strong lintel, Puseus strengthened the walls of the gates, he who is not second to the great Anthemius. Subtly done. The walk up to the next gate was, in some ways, the most fun for me, the undergrowth makes it feel like you're discovering these ruins for the first time. When you come to this entrance next to a tower that has collapsed, explore the walls closely as you continue, you'll soon see little pieces of Byzantine decoration which have survived the ravages of time. You will then come to Edirne The gate of Edirne, a Turkish city which used to be called Adrianople in Roman times, they called this the Charisseus Gate. This is probably the second most important gate in the walls after the Golden Gate which we covered in part one. As you may be able to tell it's been extensively remodelled by the Ottomans. After they captured the city it was here that Mehmed II made his triumphal entry into Constantinople. This Turkish inscription notes that fact. In Byzantine times though this gate was the strongest point in the defensive network and the major entry point into the city for local farmers coming to sell their goods. Why was this the strongest point in the defensive line? Because it is the highest point in the whole city. We are at the top of Constantinople's sixth hill, a full 77 metres above sea level. Come with me and I'll show you. Just inside the walls I found this staircase open to the public. Almost all the other access points have been fenced off. Once at the top you can see down into the tower as well as gaining a wonderful panoramic view of Istanbul from this highest of vantage points. No wonder this was the safest spot in the defences. Enemy arrows would struggle to reach the defenders up here. If we look back the way we've just walked you can again see the descent into the valley where the Lycus river would have been. From here a Byzantine general could watch an enemy army attempting to clear a path to the walls and direct his soldiers to plug any gaps in the line. Moving on north yet another highway punctures the walls as we approach the last section of Theodosius' original line of defences. Back in the 5th century the triple walls we've seen all the way up to this point would have continued on down to the Golden Horn in a line something like this. But as you can see the walls don't continue in that fashion. Instead they jut out further bringing this area within the defences. This was the suburb of Vlachernae which was devastated by the Avars during the siege of 626 AD. The Avar siege failed and the Romans ascribed their victory in part to the protection offered them by Mary, the mother of Jesus. The most famous shrine to Mary in the vicinity happened to be the church of the Theotokos, the mother of God, in Vlachernae. The sitting emperor Heraclius therefore ordered that Mary's church be protected by a new extension of the land walls. He may also have been influenced by the fact that an imperial palace sat in the same neighbourhood. The new walls created a problem though. The hilly landscape here made it impossible to continue with the line of walls and moat. So the Romans had to compensate for this weakness, as we shall soon see. The first part of this new section of the walls is up ahead. That square building in the distance is Tefkur Sarai, often called in English the Palace of the Porphyrogenitos, or Sovereign. This is one of the few buildings to survive from the Vlachernae Palace complex, which became home to the emperors from the 12th century. This palatial annex was built right up against the land walls. It was constructed in the late 13th century, and from the inside you get a sense of how it might have looked in its heyday. It has been heavily restored since, but maintains a sense of its Byzantine grandeur. Since the Ottoman conquest the building has had a lively history, serving as a menagerie, a brothel, a pottery, a poorhouse, a storehouse, and finally now a museum. In order to visit the palace we had to go inside the walls, but exiting via Egrikapi, a gate added by Manuil Komnenos, we can once again follow the line of the walls. Various emperors after Heraclius added new layers to the walls here to shore them up. The Komnenoi were the dynasty founded by Alexios Komnenos, whose family used Vlachernae as their main palatial residence. It's no surprise to learn that these sturdy looking towers were added by Manuil Komnenos to further protect their new home. As we reach the third of Manuil's towers we turn a corner and suddenly get this great view of the remainder of the walls as they wind down towards the sea. This is where the absence of the triple wall structure really becomes noticeable. To compensate for its absence these towers are closer together than the Theodosian ones and the walls are higher and thicker. Though they still look fairly daunting to attack, this is the location that many armies chose to make their stand against the Roman government. This included Bulgarian armies under Krum and Simeon, as well as the Byzantine usurpers Thomas the Slav and Leo Taunikis. These forces were not big enough to camp across the length of the land walls but it was thought that if one tower could be taken it would be here at Vlachernae. If you climb down and walk close to the walls you can spot some interesting things. These walls were mostly built in the late period with inscriptions marking restorations in the 14th and 15th centuries. These were fairly desperate times so you can find old columns and capitals that have been jammed into the mix as the later Romans scrambled to find enough building materials to hold the walls together. The most interesting part of this section of the walls are these two towers side by side, often referred to as the Prison of Anemus. The tower on the left seems to be older and may have been built to help secure the palace of Vlachernae, which no longer exists but would have been behind it beyond the walls. The tower on the right is later and less well-constructed. It may have been built around 1200 AD by Isaac Angelos as a private fort. I haven't been able to see the inside but scholars have been intrigued by the various compartments which have survived, one identifying them as prison cells, hence the Prison of Anemus, but they could just be storage rooms or even barracks. The battlements of these final few towers are of later construction but you can find inscriptions by earlier emperors who worked on them as you go. On the final tower in the line here another inscription to Romanus, either the second or third, can be found. And then you turn the corner and realise that you have reached the end of the land walls. As the wall continues on at a right angle you are now looking at the sea walls. Modern Istanbul has extended itself beyond these old limits and the Golden Horn is now a couple of hundred metres further away. The walls are of course free to visit but they are far away from most of the tourist sites in Istanbul. I would suggest going with someone else.