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When I asked Robert Ousterhout—author, frequent visitor to Turkey, professor of Byzantine Art and Architecture, and director of the Center for Ancient Studies at the University of Pennsylvania—what some of his favorite memories of Istanbul were, he asked if he could ponder the query for a while, and later he shared this special recollection: “During the intermission at the Istanbul Music Festival in Aya İrini, I enjoy waylaying my guests, leading them through the darkened aisles to the west doors, where through the crack we have a narrow view into the atrium of the church. Lustrous in the half-light of the evening is the huge porphyry [purple granite] sarcophagus of Constantine the Great, all but forgotten in its present location. As a historian of Byzantine art and architecture, the experience at Aya İrini is emblematic of how the Byzantine city is seen today—dimly, unexpectedly, out of context—often no more than a provocative glimpse through the cracks of the Ottoman and contemporary city.” (Note: Aya İrini [Hagia Eirene] is open to the public only during the annual International Istanbul Music Festival in June.)

Mimar: Architecture in Development was an excellent bulletin published from 1981 to 1992, and it was the only international architecture magazine to focus on architecture in the developing world. One edition featured an absolutely fantastic guide to the history and architecture of Istanbul. It’s available online, complimentary, along with all forty-three issues of the magazine. Go to Archnet.org/library/ documents/collection.jsp?collection_id=87, or simply type “Mimar: Architecture in Development” in Google to access all Mimar editions online.

The Istanbul essay was a collaboration by four authors who’d participated in the Turkish workshop of the Oriental Cities Program. I very much wanted to reprint it here, but it’s quite lengthy—however, don’t let that prevent you from downloading the report! It’s outstanding. It takes readers through the many historical periods with articles such as “Byzantium from Antiquity to the Middle Ages,” “The Classic Ottoman City,” “Cosmopolitan Istanbul,” and “Istanbul—Capital in Spite of Everything (after 1922).” You may find lots of other articles of interest as well, notably “The Arsenals of Venice and Istanbul” and “Individual Houses: Turkey.”

Istanbul’s Caravan Stops

JOHN K. McDONALD

THIS HAS long been one of my favorite articles in my files, and after reading it I became completely obsessed with Turkish hans. My idea of a great day out in Istanbul would be to make a tour of all the hans that are accessible to visitors. A han and a caravansary are the same thing, but a han may be thought of as an urban way station while a caravansary is more of a “truck-stop-for-camels” in the words of Tom Brosnahan.

This piece originally appeared in the travel section of The New York Times over twenty years ago. Though I haven’t made a tour of the hans mentioned in this piece recently (and I’m not positive they are all still open to visitors), I included the piece more for the history of and information about the hans. If you really want to see these particular hans, you should ask the concierge at your hotel or a guide to find out for you in advance if they are all open; but there are some hans within the Grand Bazaar that I can confirm are open and are definitely welcoming to visitors.

JOHN K. MCDONALD studied Egyptology at Cambridge University and the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. He worked for many years as assistant curator of Egyptian art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

UNTIL THE dissolution of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, and the subsequent move of the Turkish capital to Ankara, Istanbul was the seat of Ottoman power. Built on the remnants of Constantinople and Byzantium, it was as grand a city as it was powerful, for the sultans fully intended it to be a majestic capital and commissioned the finest architects to make it so.

Between the conquest in 1453 and