Excavations at the Byzantine Great Palace (Palatium Magnum) in Former Sultanahmet Prison Area

Excavations have been undertaken at an area of about 17,000 sq. m. within the Byzantine Great Palace premises, now located within the gardens of the former Sultanahmet jail, by the Directorate of Istanbul Archaeological Museums since 1997.

Excavations conducted to date have brought to light architectural remains from various phases of the Byzantine period (e.g. the main gate “Khalke Pule” of the Great Palace, -possibly- Soter Khristos tes Khalkes Chapel next to the gate, rooms identified as Magnaura Palace/Senate House by Mamboury and Wiegand, 48-meter-long stretch of a northwest-southeast street, a small baths with hypocaust system, an octagonal room, rooms with frescoes and mosaic pavements, a vaulted building complex, cistern and various water installations) and a cemetery from the 11th-13th centuries. Most of these remains are new finds, hitherto unknown, and are of utmost importance for the light they will shed on the archaeology of the Byzantine Great Palace and the city.

Probings were carried under the ground level out at various points in the excavation area and although not clearly datable for the time being, remains of possibly earlier walls were encountered.

Small finds uncovered in the course of excavations include bronze, silver and gold coins and seals; jewelry and costume accessories of various materials; pottery; lighting devices and sacred objects; terracotta, bone, metal and glass objects used in daily life. An interesting find is a coin struck on the occasion of celebrations held for Konstantinopolis’s becoming the capital city; this limited emission coin has survived with only very few examples to date.

< Back to Abstracts of Papers