Column of Constantine

The Column of Constantine (Çemberlitaş Sütunu; Στήλη του Κωνσταντίνου Α ́; Columna Constantini) is a monumental column built for Roman emperor Constantine the Great to commemorate the dedication of Constantinople on 11 May 330 AD. Built 328 AD, it is the oldest Constantinian monument to survive in Istanbul and stood in the centre of the Forum of Constantine. It occupies the second-highest hill of the seven hills of Constantine's Nova Roma, the erstwhile Byzantium, and was midway along the Mese odos, the ancient city's main thoroughfare. The Turkish name Çemberlitaş, from çemberli 'hooped' and taş 'stone', was applied after repairs by the Ottomans in c. 1515, who added iron reinforcing hoops to the shaft, and came to refer to the surrounding area. The column stands at the point where Yeniçeriler Caddesi ('Street of the Janissaries') joined the Divan Yolu ('Road to the Divan'), the two streets connecting Sultanahmet Square with Beyazıt Square and roughly following the course of the old Mese odos. The Roman street led eastward to the Augustaion, the Hippodrome, Hagia Sophia, the Baths of Zeuxippus, and the Chalke Gate of the Great Palace. To the west it led through the Forum of Theodosius to the Philadelphion and the walls of Constantinople. In Constantine's Forum itself the emperor established the original home of the Byzantine Senate. The column stands right beside the Çemberlitaş stop on the T1 tramline. The column shaft is composed of very large porphyry column drums set on a white marble pedestal that is no longer visible. Its top is 34.8 m above the present-day ground level. Estimates of the original height of the column, without the statue that stood on the top, vary between 37 and 40 m; the monument as a whole would have been nearly 50 m tall. It may have been the largest Roman honorific column of all, rivalled only by the later Column of Theodosius in Constantinople, now demolished. Constantine's Column was taller than Trajan's Column and the Column of Marcus Aurelius in Rome; its size approached or exceeded the height of the Colosseum (48 m) and the internal height of the Pantheon (43 m) in Rome.