The Bridges Over the Golden Horn |
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There were no bridges over the Golden Horn in Byzantine times. People traveled from one Side to the other in boats. The site of the bridge said to have been built by Justinian in the 6th century is not known with certainty. In fact it is almost certain that this bridge was not over the Golden Horn. It is possible that the bridge in question spanned the mouth of the Kâğıthane Creek at the point where it flowed into the Golden Horn. It is not known what the remains, thought to have been the supports of the bridge, seen in the Ayvansaray course by the French traveller Pierre Gilles of Albi (Gyllius) in the l6th century, were. It is indeed doubtful that they belonged to a bridge. In 1453, when the city was being besieged by the Turks, Mehmet the Conqueror had a pontoon bridge built over the upper part of the Golden Horn. This bridge can be quite clearly seen in the miniatures in a travelogue by Bertrandan de la Broguiene, executed about two years after the conquest. For many years after the Ottoman conquest, people traveled from one bank to the other by boat. It was in 1836 that the two banks were linked for the first time by the Hayratiye Bridge, which lay between Unkapanı and Azapkapısı.
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