Valens Aqueduct

The Valens Aqueduct (Turkish: Bozdoğan Kemeri, meaning "Aqueduct of the grey falcon"; Ancient Greek: Ἀγωγός του ὕδατος, Agōgós tou hýdatos, meaning simply "aqueduct") is a Roman aqueduct which was the major water-providing system of the Eastern Roman capital of Constantinople (modern Istanbul, Turkey). Completed by Roman Emperor Valens in the late 4th century AD, it was restored by several Ottoman Sultans, and is one of the most important landmarks of the city.

Location

The aqueduct stands in Istanbul, in the quarter of Fatih, and spans the valley between the hills occupied today by the Istanbul University and the Fatih Mosque. The surviving section is 921 meters long, about 50 meters less than the original length. The Atatürk Bulvarı boulevard passes under its arches.

] Roman period

The construction of a water supply system for the city (then still called Byzantium) had begun already under the Roman emperor Hadrian. Under Constantine I, when the city was rebuilt and increased in size, the system needed to be greatly expanded to meet the needs of the rapidly growing population.

The Valens aqueduct, which originally got its water from the slopes of the hills between Kağıthane and the Sea of Marmara, was merely one of the terminal points of this new wide system of aqueducts and canals - which eventually reached over 250 kilometers in total length, the longest such system of Antiquity - that stretched throughout the hill-country of Thrace and provided the capital with water. Once in the city, the water was stored in three open reservoirs and over a hundred underground cisterns, such as the Basilica Cistern, with a total capacity of over 1 million cubic meters.

The exact date that construction on the aqueduct began is uncertain, but it was completed in the year 368 during the reign of Roman Emperor Valens, whose name it bears. It lay along the valley between the third and fourth hills of Constantinople, occupied respectively at that time by the Capitolium and the Church of the Holy Apostles. According to tradition, the aqueduct was built using the stones of the walls of Chalcedon, pulled down as punishment in 366 after the revolt of Procopius. The structure was inaugurated in the year 373 by the urban prefect Klearchos, who commissioned a Nymphaeum Maius in the Forum of Theodosius, that was supplied with water from the aqueduct.

After a severe drought in 382, Theodosius I built a new line (the Aquaeductus Theodosiacus), which took water from the northeastern region known today as the “Belgrade Forest”.

East Roman (Byzantine) period

Other works were executed under Theodosius II, who decided to distribute the water of the aqueduct exclusively to the Nymphaeum, the Baths of Zeuxippus and the Great Palace of Constantinople. The aqueduct, possibly damaged by an earthquake, was restored under Emperor Justinian I, who connected it with the Cistern of the Basilica of Illus (identified today either with the Yerebatan or with the Binbirdirek (Turkish: Turkish): "thousand and one columns") cistern, and was repaired in 576 by Justin II, who built a separate pipe.

The aqueduct was cut by the Avars during the siege of 626, and the water supply was reestablished only after the great drought of 758 by Emperor Constantine V. The Emperor had the whole water supply system repaired by a certain Patrikios, who used a large labour force coming from the whole of Greece and Anatolia.

Other maintenance works were accomplished under Emperors Basil II (in 1019) and Romanos III Argyros

The last Byzantine Emperor who took care of the aqueduct was Andronikos I Komnenos. Neither during the Latin Empire nor during the Palaiologan period were any repair works executed, but by that time the population of the city had shrunk to about 40,000 - 50,000 inhabitants, so that the water supply was no longer a very important issue. Nevertheless, according to Ruy Gonzáles de Clavijo, a Castilian diplomat who traveled to Constantinople en route to an embassy to Timur in 1403, the aqueduct was still functioning.

Ottoman period

After the Fall of Constantinople (1453), Sultan Mehmet II repaired the whole water supply, which was then used to bring water to the imperial palaces of Eski Sarayi (the first palace, built on the third hill) and Topkapı Sarayi, and connected it with a new line coming from the northeast. The great earthquake of 1509 destroyed the arches near the Mosque of Şehzade, which was erected some time later. This gave rise to the popular legend that they were cut, in order to allow a better view from the nearby mosque. The repairs to the water-supplying net continued under Beyazid II, who added a new line.

Around the middle of the 16th century, Suleyman I rebuilt arches (now ogival) 47 up to 51 (counted from the west) near the Şehzade Mosque, and commissioned the Imperial Architect Mimar Sinan to add two more lines, coming from the Forest of Belgrade (Belgrad Ormanı). The increased flow allowed the distribution of water to the Kιrkçeşme ("Forty Fountains") quarter, situated along the aqueduct on the Golden Horn side, and so called after the many fountains built there under Suleyman.^[

Under Sultan Mustafa II, five arches (41-45) were restored, respecting the ancient form. An inscription in situ, dated 1696/97, commemorates the event. His successor Ahmed III repaired again the distribution net.

In 1912, a 50-meter-long part of the aqueduct near the Fatih Mosque was pulled down. In the same period, a new modern Taksim ("distribution plant", lit. 'division') at the east end was erected.

Description

The Aqueduct of Valens

The Aqueduct of Valens had a length of 971 meters and a maximum height of ca. 29 meters (63 meters above sea level) with a constant slope of 1:1000. Arches 1-40 and 46-51 belong to the time of Valens, arches 41-45 to Mustafa II, and those between 52 and 56 to Suleyman I. Arches 18-73 have a double order, the others a single order.

Originally the structure ran perfectly straight, but during the construction of the Fatih Mosque - for unknown reasons - it was bent in that section The masonry is not regular, and uses a combination of ashlar blocks and bricks. The first row of arches is built with well-squared stone blocks, the upper row is built with four to seven courses of stones alternated with a bed of smaller material (opus caementitium) clamped with iron cramps. The width of the aqueduct varies from 7.75 meters to 8.24 meters. The pillars are 3.70 meters thick, and the arches of the lower order are four meters wide.

The water comes from two lines from the northeast and one coming from the northwest, which join together outside the walls, near the Adrianople Gate (Edirne Kapı).Near the east end of the aqueduct there is a distribution plant, and another lies near Hagia Sophia. The water feeds the zone of the imperial palace The daily discharge in the 1950s amounted to 6,120 cubic meters. During Byzantine times, two roads important for the topography of medieval Constantinople crossed under the eastern section of the aqueduct.



Class  6-A

Milion Stone Start Point of Ancient Roads

The Milion (was a mile-marker monument erected in the early 4th century AD in Constantinople. It was the starting-place for measurement of distances for all the roads leading to the cities of the Byzantine Empire and had the same function as the Milliarium Aureum of Rome. It survived intact until at least the late 15th century and fragments of it were discovered again in the 1960s

Location

The remains of the monument are located in Istanbul, in the district of Eminönü, in the neighborhood of Cağaloğlu, at the northern corner of the square of Hagia Sophia, and close to the Basilica Cistern.

History and description

When Emperor Constantine I the Great rebuilt the city of Byzantium to make it his new imperial capital, which he named Nova Roma ("New Rome"), he consciously emulated many of the features of "Old Rome". Among these was the Milion: it was a tetrapylon surmounted by a dome, built in the first Region of the city, near the old Walls of Byzantium, at the very beginning of the main thoroughfare of the new city, the Mese which at that point formed a bend. The new building fulfilled the same role as the Milliarium Aureum in Rome: it was considered as the origin of all the roads leading to the European cities of the Byzantine Empire, and on its base were inscribed the distances of all the main cities of the Empire from Constantinople. The monument was just east the Augustaeum, and was much more complex than its Roman counterpart. It can be described as a double triumphal arch surmounted by a dome, which was carried by four arches It was crowned by the statues of Constantine and his mother Helena with a cross looking towards east between them. A statue of the Tyche of the City stood behind them.

From the beginning of the sixth century, the building became an increasingly important station of the imperial ceremonial. Justinian I added to it a Sundial, while Justin II adorned the lower part with the statues of his wife Sophia, his daughter Arabia and his niece Helena The monument was also adorned with equestrian sculptures of Trajan, Hadrian, Theodosius II and a bronze Quadriga of Helios

The label on the remains of the Milion

During the first half of the eighth century, the vaults of the building were adorned by Emperors Philippikos and Anastasios II with paintings of past ecumenical councils, but during the Iconoclastic Age Emperor Constantine V replaced them with scenes from the Hippodrome.

During the Comnenian Age the Milion, due to its strategic position, witnessed fights in the city, like those between Nikephoros III and Alexios I, or those between imperial troops and Empress Maria of Antioch, who from this position was controlling the Augustaeum.

In the period 1268 to 1271, after the end of the Latin Empire, the Milion — together with the Augustaeum — became property of the church of Hagia Sophia.

After the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople (1453), the building remained intact up to the end of the fifteenth century.^[  It disappeared possibly at the beginning of sixteenth century because of the enlargement of the nearby aqueduct and the subsequent erection of the nearby suterazi (Turkish: "water tower", lit. "water scale").

In the years 1967 and '68, following theoretical studies about the location of the monument and after the demolition of the houses placed above it, excavations revealed some foundations and a fragment (now re-erected as a pillar) belonging to the building.  These remains could be positively identified as belonging to the Milion thanks to their vicinity to a part of bent 

Class 6-B

The Roman Aqueduct in Patras

The excavations in the Roman city of Patras revealed several wells that serve domestic needs but also a well-organized system with underground water pipes and running water, and fountains still fed in private homes. The water reached the city through the Roman aqueduct, covering approximately 7.5 km course. On the southeastern outskirts of the ancient citadel, which ended the aqueduct, the water is shared underground ducts and branches in the city. The ambitious and vital this project, which of course would also be costly, probably built by Emperor Hadrian in the early second century. AD


The water ran from its source cheimarropotamou Diakoniaris in its current location Neromanna Romanos, where the first remains of the building. Characteristic is the fact that the present city of Patras carry water from the same sources. From there follows a difficult path downward through hills and canyons to reach after a long way in today's Aroe just behind the ancient Acropolis. In most of the route the pipeline was underground, mainly smooth and downhill slopes of the hills, and had a large diameter and was vaulted. The remaining sections, especially in canyons and where the height differences should be bridged for the smooth downhill path of water were created energies high arches, above which the pipeline passed. The aboveground parts are built-preserved in some areas to their original height and length sufficient to allow us to form the image of an impressive project.


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