Before meeting up with our tour group, we dived down into the 1500 year old subterranean Basilica Cistern that provided 20 million gallons of water to the city, then called Constantinople. The 336 columns are a uniform 30 feet tall but a few had to be adjusted with salvaged blocks from ruins. Medusa heads propped up two of the columns, one head sideways and one upside down, perhaps positioned that way simply to provide the appropriate height. A myth-understood explanation may be that the builders were protecting us from Medusa’s deadening gaze that would turn us all into stone.
