Yenikapı, Konstantinopolis?de bir geç Antik Çağ limanı: Yeni buluntular üzerine tarihsel, arkeolojik ve mimari bir calışma

In 2004, for the first time in the history of ancient Constantinople, one of the harbors of the Byzantine capital started to be excavated in today?s Yenikapı, prior to the beginning of the Marmaray subway construction project. Covering a large area of 59,000 m2, the archaeological excavations in Yenikapı -carried out by the Istanbul Archaeological Museum and funded by the Ministry of Transportation and the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality- are considered to be the largest and the most challenging rescue archaeological project ever conducted in Istanbul.So far, the archaeological excavations at Yenikapı have revealed countless groundbreaking findings in the silted harbor area such as the remains of the earliest prehistoric settlement in Istanbul and the Byzantine shipwrecks dating from the fifth to the eleventh centuries. Despite the growing interest in newly discovered remains, two aspects of the harbor in Yenikapı have still not received sufficient attention: its history and its newly discovered architectural remains.This thesis combines for the first time the historical and archaeological evidence and presents a comprehensive historical survey about the harbor in Yenikapı with a particular focus on those two neglected aspects. In doing so it draws on various Byzantine primary sources, which provide significant insights about the harbors of Constantinople in general and the harbor in Yenikapı in particular. In comparison with other Roman harbor excavations, the study discusses the grain storage problem and the underwater engineering technique applied in Yenikapı being one of the few Byzantine period examples discovered so far.Based on the historical and the new archaeological evidence, this thesis draws attention to the importance of the harbor in Yenikapı for Constantinople and proposes a new interpretation of the harbor?s historiography and archaeology, particularly for its newly discovered remains dating from the fourth to the thirteenth centuries.