Rumeli Fortress

Istanbul · Turkey · Fortress

The land was to be no bigger than an ox hide — so the hide was cut to a hair-fine thread, closed in a ring around the headland.

At the narrowest point of the Bosphorus, Mehmed the Conqueror raised in 1452 the fortress called Boğazkesen, the throat-cutter, which closed the strait to everything bound for besieged Constantinople. The legend tells how the ground came into his hands. The sultan asked the emperor for a plot of land no bigger than an ox hide. The request was granted — whereupon the hide was cut into hair-fine strips knotted into a single long thread, and the thread was laid out in a ring around the entire headland. On that ground the walls went up in four months, the three great towers assigned to Saruca Pasha, Zağanos Pasha and the grand vizier Halil Pasha, who were set to race one another to finish first. The name Boğazkesen means both the one who closes the strait and the one who cuts a throat.

FAQ

Where is Rumeli Fortress located?

Rumeli Fortress is in Istanbul, Turkey.

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Accounts are drawn from local folklore and visitor reports.

Image: Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons