At the N. angle of At Meïdán, where Rue Divan Yolou (p. [550]) diverges, lies a small Public Garden. Farther on, to the S.W., passing a Street Fountain presented by Emp. William II. in 1898, we come to three ancient monuments which still occupy their old places on the spina of the Hippodrome (comp. p. [348]). One is the Obelisk of Theodosius I., dating from the time of Thutmosis III. (p. [456]; brought from Heliopolis), with Roman reliefs, on the pedestal, of the imperial family viewing the races from the court-stand of the Hippodrome. The second is the bronze *Snake Column, once the central support of a huge tripod which the Greeks erected as a votive offering at Delphi after the victory of Platæa (p. [506]). The third is the so-called Colossus, an obelisk of unknown origin.
No less conspicuous than the Aya Sophia is the *Mosque of Ahmed I. (Pl. H, 7), on the S.E. side of At Meïdán. It was built by the young sultan of that name in 1608–14 as the second-largest mosque in the city, and is the only one besides the Kaaba at Mecca that has six minarets. The large outer court, planted with trees and often used as a market-place, is separated from At Meïdán by a broken-down wall. The lofty chief portal, with its stalactite niche and its fine bronze gate, leads into a forecourt flanked with domed colonnades where we notice the pretty stalactite capitals. In the centre rises a superb hexagonal marble fountain with a railing.
The interior of the mosque (79 by 70 yds.), in the style of the Mehmedieh (p. [553]), resembles the Shahzadeh mosque (p. [552]) in the disposition of its four half-domes. The great central dome, 73 ft. in diameter, rests on four clumsy round pillars, and around it runs a low gallery with depressed keel-arches. The walls are lined with white marble below and with beautiful fayence tiles from Nikæa above.
To the S.W. of At Meïdán is the Janissaries’ Museum (Pl. G, H, 7; adm., see p. [539]), in which are exhibited wax-figures wearing the ancient costumes of Turkish dignitaries and the uniforms of the Janissaries, or old body-guard (1328–1826).
To the S. of the Museum, close to the railway, rises the *Küchük Aya Sóphia (Pl. H, 7, 8), or ‘little’ mosque of Aya Sophia, a kind of prelude to the ‘great’, now containing a military museum. It was built under Justinian in 528, at the same time as San Vitale at Ravenna, as a church of SS. Sergius and Bacchus. The building is nearly square, with semicircular niches at the angles, and encloses an octagonal interior, between the eight corner-columns of which are four semicircular niches and four straight rows of columns. The junction of the walls with the dome was masked, as later in the Sophia Church, by curved triangular spandrels or pendentives.
Beyond the public garden (p. [549]) we enter the Rue Divan Yolou (tramway No. 3, p. [538]). At the end of it, on the right, is a railed-in burial-ground containing the handsome Türbeh of Mahmud II. (d. 1839) and his son Abdul Aziz (sultan in 1861–76). Entrance to the right, in Rue Mahmoudié.
In the main street, now called Sedefdjilar Yolou, we next come to the second hill of New Rome (p. [541]), crowned with the so-called Burnt Column (Pl. G, 6; Turk. Chemberli Tash, ‘stone with the hoop’). This great column of porphyry was erected by Constantine on the ancient ‘triumphal way’, to mark the centre of his forum, and bore his statue in bronze down to 1105. It was restored in 1909. The street then leads past the Kalpakjilar Kapu (on the right), the S. gate of the Great Bazaar (p. [551]), to the Bayazid Mosque (p. [551]).
From the Burnt Column the Rue Nouri Osmanié leads to the N. to the white marble Mosque of Nuri Osmanieh (Pl. G, 6), a bold dome-roofed edifice copied from the Selim Mosque (p. [553]), but with a semicircular forecourt.
Adjacent on the W. is the *Great Bazaar (Pl. G, 6; Turk. Büyük Charshi, ‘great market’), one of the sights of Constantinople. It lies in a depression between the Nuri Osmanieh Mosque and the Serasker Square (see below) and forms a distinct quarter of the city, enclosed by gates. As in the sûks (p. [335]) the crafts mostly have their own streets or districts. Most of the buildings have been re-erected since the earthquake of 1894. To the early 17th cent. belongs the still extant castellated Valideh Han (see below); of the early 18th cent. are the Bezestán (the main central building, founded in the 10th cent.) and the Sandal Bezestán. Besides genuine Oriental wares many European goods also are sold here.
The Nuri Osmanieh Kapu, on the W. side of the outer court of the mosque, opens on to the Kalpakjilar Bashi Jaddesí, the main thoroughfare on the S. side of the Bazaar. Immediately on the right is the Sandal Bezestán, once the silk-bazaar, now a warehouse (usually closed).