Illustration
One of two monumental Medusa carvings which hold up columns in the Basilica Cistern of Istanbul (formerly Constantinople). The cistern was constructed in the 6th century BCE reusing the Medusa blocks from an earlier Roman building. One Medusa head is placed on its side whilst the other is upside down, perhaps in an attempt to negate the power of the Gorgon's gaze which could turn men to stone in Greek mythology.
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This image was first published on Flickr.
Original image by Rob Hutton. Uploaded by Mark Cartwright, published on 09 April 2013. The copyright holder has published this content under the following license: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon this content non-commercially, as long as they credit the author and license their new creations under the identical terms. When republishing on the web a hyperlink back to the original content source URL must be included. Please note that content linked from this page may have different licensing terms.
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Cite This Work
APA Style
Hutton, R. (2013, April 09). Basilica Cistern, Constantinople. World History Encyclopedia. Retrieved from https://www.worldhistory.org/image/1141/basilica-cistern-constantinople/
Chicago Style
Hutton, Rob. "Basilica Cistern, Constantinople." World History Encyclopedia. Last modified April 09, 2013. https://www.worldhistory.org/image/1141/basilica-cistern-constantinople/.
MLA Style
Hutton, Rob. "Basilica Cistern, Constantinople." World History Encyclopedia. World History Encyclopedia, 09 Apr 2013. Web. 26 Feb 2025.
