Cistern of Theodosius

The Cistern of Theodosius is marked by the row of iron-grated ventilation shafts poking through the street level of the neighborhood. Beneath the pavement, thirty-two marble columns hold up a complex network of vaulted brick arches. Emperor Theodosius the second commissioned the structure in the fifth century to store water transported by the Valens Aqueduct. When the city fell in fourteen fifty-three, the cistern became a secluded workshop where silk weavers worked in the damp, cool darkness until the mid-twentieth century.