Fall of Costantinople Photo

Photographer’s Note

The fall of Costantinople was the end of the Oriental Roman Empire. The siege lasted from April to end of May 1453, you can find details on wikipedia at:

Fall of Costantinople

In this painted wall, which I found in a parking lot of Sultanahmet, Istanbul, the city is depicted with the large chain which was set up to close the entry of the harbor and forbid Turkish naval forces to enter. To overcome this problem the Turks built a 2 km wood catwalk where slaves pushed the ships to reach the waters of the Black sea and the city harbor. They say that people in Costantinople were panicked since a prophecy had announced that "the city will fall when ships will navigate on earth".

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marjan (6099) 2008-11-25 8:11

hi Marica, very nice shot with interesting motive from long time ago. Roman empire finished long before, it was capital of Byzantine empire after dad of Roman e,

Marjan

Cretense (57564) 2008-11-26 3:02

Ciao Marica!

Beautiful capture of this "naive" painting, great tight framing and beautiful colours! Very interesting subject, although a sad one for us Greeks! Congratulations!

Hercules

batalay (21416) 2008-11-26 7:38

Hello Marica,

I was wondering why I had not seen this painting before (most other historical images from the period are quite well known). Then I read your note, and found out that it was a "relic" from the parking lot. In my new book, on the topic of Byzantine scholars immigrating to the West, I would have included this symbolic image. We sailed through the Bosporus on August 17 on the way through to the Black Sea (Yalta and Constanta), then docked for two days in Istanbul (August 21-22). Were you still there?

Warm regards,

Bulent