This was burnt down just as van Millingen was publishing his magisterial survey of Constantinople’s Byzantine churches and he included a couple of sad commemorative pictures of the ruin. It was in a sad state and serving as a rubbish dump when Mamboury was writing in 1951. Freely reported that it was a ‘mere shell’ in the late 1970s. It was a surprise, then, to be presented with this neat little gem when I headed downhill from Laleli Camii on a winter day at the end of 1990 (41.008597,28.955632). It is perhaps a little too neat to be true to its original appearance but it stands there looking like the archetypal Byzantine church and I rather like it. It does look a bit like a sculpture made out of stacks of coins, though.
Perhaps the real interest in this area comes with the bodrum (basement) rather than the cami. The church itself was built on a massive basement with one of the tallest crypts that has ever existed.
To the south-west of the church is an improbably large, circular open space paved with marble.
If you enter the Mirelion Çarşısı beneath this terrace, you will find a thriving Balkan fur trade conducted in a forest of Byzantine columns.
It appears to have had its genesis in someone’s desire to build a Pantheon-like rotunda here in the 5th century. The dome was never finished and in the early 10th century, the emperor decided to put the columns in and use the resulting structure as a foundation for a palace. The church attached to the palace was what we now see as Bodrum Camii. The rotunda was later used as a cistern, then sat about in a derelict state for a few centuries until someone thought of selling furs (and luggage) there.
Sub-zero Bodrum
Shop in the crypt
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