Byzantine Hippodrome

Byzantine Hippodrome

At the time of Byzance, the Hippodrome was the alive center of the city, the places where the races of tanks and horses proceeded, and where the great festivals were celebrated, but it was also the place of expression of the popular discontent. Length 400 meters and broad of 150. It could accomodate to 100 000 witnesses. Destroyed by the invasions and plunderings, there n’en remain aujourd’hui that some vestiges - the most beautiful parts are in the museums of London, Paris and Rome. The place of the Hippodrome is today a place of walk decorated of benches.

The obelisque one of Tutmosis III will gra nit of it pink, was set up in the years 1500 av.J.C. Coming from the temple of Karnak in Egypt, it made 35 meter in height. But to facilitate its forwarding to Constantinople, it was separate in several pieces, and only the higher third, of 23 m, was drawn up on the place of the hippodrome into 390 by the Théodose emperor the Large one. The hiéroglyphes qu’il carries engraved tell l’histoire of Tutmosis III d’Egypte. The low-reliefs of the carved marble base show Théodose and its family attending the plays.

the column of Constantin is high 32 Mr. Constantin emperor the large one made it renovate with X 2nd century and it was covered with gilded bronze plates. Then the cross ones tore off them, and melted them to manufacture currency.

the serpentine column , twists of three interlaced snakes, coming from the temple of Apollo of Delphes, offered by the thirty and one Greek cities having raised troops to overcome Perses with Platées in 479 front. J.C.. The three heads of snake at its top were broken during time.
One of them was found in 1847 and is with the archaeological museum of Istanbul. C’est the oldest Greek monument d’Istanbul.

texts and photographs : Stephane Mugnier