Bosphorus

Spotting Synagogues Amongst the Minarets: A Tour of Jewish Istanbul

Submitted by Meral Crifasi on Fri, 11/20/2009 - 17:19

I am planning a week-long trip to Istanbul with my husband and two young boys for Christmas holidays and the New Year. The main focus of the holiday will be visiting my family who live in Istanbul and catching up with friends. Each time we are back home my French husband gets restless in a family environment with too much Turkish language around him that he understands very little of, and wants to be the sightseeing tourist wondering the streets.

Gnaeus Egnatius

Gnaeus Egnatius was a macedonian proconsul during the Roman Republic. He built the eponymous Via Egnatia which joined the Adriatic Sea to Istanbul (lat/long given below) which was begun in 146 BC and completed in 120 BC.

A proconsul was a promagistrate (like a propraetor) who, after serving as consul, spent a year as a governor of a province. Certain provinces were reserved for proconsuls; who received which one by senatorial appointment was determined by random choosing or negotiation between the two proconsuls.

Byzantium/Constantinople/Istanbul

Attribution:

ganso.org

Key Dates

The European side dates back to a Neolithic settlment from circa 6500 BC. The first human settlement on the Anatolian side dates to the Copper Age period, around 5500–3500 BC. The city was founded in 667 BC. In its long history, under its various names, it has served as the capital city of the Roman Empire (330-395 BC), the East Roman (Byzantine) Empire (395BC-1204 AD and 1261-1453), the Latin Empire (1204-1261), and the Ottoman Empire (1453-1922).

Key People

Greek King Byzas was the founder of the city, and it was named Byzantium in his honour. Roman Emperor Constantine I named the city the capital of the Roman Empire in 330 BC, so its title changed to Constantinople. In 1453 it was captured by Sultan Mehmed II, and it became the capital of the Ottoman Empire. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk moved the capital to Ankara with the founding of the Republic of Turkey in 1923.

The biggest city in modern Turkey has been a cross-roads of European, Asian and world history for many centuries. Powerful empires have one after another, in an unbroken chain dating back as far 667 BC, made it one of the centres of their world and a hotbed of political, religious and artistic activity. Its strategically advantageous position on the Bosphorus peninsula between the Balkans and Anatolia, the Black Sea and the Mediterranean is its major strength.

Related Structures

Hippodrome of Constantine, Hagia Sophia, Süleymaniye Mosque.

Images