The Tower of Belisarius: A case study of a Byzantine ruin during the Ottoman period

Abstract

The Tower of Belisarius was constructed on the rocky seafloor at the mouth of the Port of Theodosius in Constantinople. In contrast to standard monumental urban structures, it formed one of the most striking maritime “landmarks,” representing
a fixed point in the harbor installation. Using the tower as a case study, this article provides an overview of how a Byzantine structure surrounded by the sea survived in İstanbul until the end of the nineteenth century. Its principal argument is that the structure preserved its residual form over time, even after a large-scale urban development project in the 1760s which reshaped the landscape in which the tower was located. The article combines primary sources and comparative publications with historical maps to locate the tower’s original position, first at the mouth of the Port of Theodosius and then in the infilled harbor site outside Langa Yenikapı. By adopting a diachronic viewpoint, it addresses a set of related issues: the tower’s location in the harbor’s configuration; the construction of the apocryphal story of Belisarius and its association with the tower; and finally, the structure’s integration into the built-up area and how razing it to the ground.