1001 Direk Cistern / Binbirdirek Cistern

Binbirdirek  Cistern , the second biggest water reservoir of  İstanbul  was built in the 4th
Century. Senator Philoxenus  built his palace as a neighbor to the hippodrome and built this
Cistern in order to meet  need of the palace . The German voyager R. Lubenau who visited
Istanbul in the 16 th  Century reported that there were thread workes working in the cistern . However , there are also others that claim that the cistern contained water in the 18 th century
As there had not been water in the cistern for a long time , it was used by theard benders as a workshop in the 19 th century . Some of the arches were pierced and opening that let light inside were opened . Binbirdirek Cistern was limited with a thick wall around and its dimensions are 64 ,56,40 m. The brackets each of which has 16 lines of 14 pillars with a space of 3,75 m in between are tied with arches .

Pillars and heads were designed for this cistern and they were not collected from other structures . The arches on the heads are tied with opposite stretchers . Only the round holes on them can be seen today. The name of the cistern in the Turkish era may have come form words ‘a thousand and one ‘ which represented multiplicity while some people claim that these words may apply also due to overlapped pillar bodies. The lower sections of the pillars are buried into to the ground about 5 meters deep. The total height of the brackets is 12.50 meters. The 15 holes on the left side of the entrance of the cistern were filled. 

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