The Section at the Eastern Point of the Plateau

As we walk to the eastern point we pass by several ruins, the size of which indicates that this was once a residential area for the wealthy inhabitants. The very point of the eastern end served only for military purposes. Here we find an extensive bastion with domed turrets and vaulted sentry boxes. If we walk all the way to the edge of the plateau, we can see that in the direction of the Hagia Sophia a defense wall runs just below the plateau, and that the Hagia Sophia stands at the very edge of the cliffs, that rise up perpendicularly from the sea.

At first the modern day observer may be puzzled by the location of defenses here, facing out to the open sea. But the rationale for the heavy fortification at the eastern points is not difficult to figure out. Attackers would have to pass by this point if they wanted to operate out of one or the other of the bays on either side of the rock.

If we walk back a short way into the residential area near the eastern point, we come to a small path that leads off to the right, along the edge of the precipice, to the Hagia Sophia.

Engraving by Baccouel from the Nineteenth Century