A Subway Bores Into The Ottoman And Byzantine Eras

[Primus Pilus]

The dusty pit next to the governor's office here looks like any other archaeological dig. Workers chip away gingerly at a half-buried stone wall, carting off the crumbling bricks in a wheelbarrow.

 

The walls were originally the cellars of houses built 50 to 70 years ago in the early years of the Turkish Republic. Beneath them, archaeologists have uncovered a staircase dating from the late Ottoman Empire, perhaps a century or two old. And lurking beneath that is a genuine treasure: a stone arch that forms part of a cistern from the late Byzantine period, which ended in 1453...

 

From NY Times International/Istanbul Journal

[Favonius Cornelius]

Cool stuff, they ususally dont care about preservation:

 

But it has not yet done so, despite what some archaeologists say is ample evidence of Roman and Byzantine ruins, including the cistern next to the governor's office. Based on the excavation so far, Mr. Karamut said, there were no findings that would "change the archaeological history of Istanbul."

 

 

Turkish government are racist a**holes when it comes to archaeology.