Serpent Column

About Serpent Column

The Serpent Column is one of the oldest objects still standing in Istanbul, and it's easy to walk past without realizing what you're looking at. It's a twisted bronze column that once stood in Delphi, in Greece, cast in the 5th century BC to commemorate the Greek victory over the Persians at the Battle of Plataea. The Roman emperor Constantine had it moved to his new capital in the 4th century AD to decorate the Hippodrome, the chariot-racing arena at the heart of the Byzantine city. So the thing you see today has already had a life of more than a thousand years before it even arrived here, which is worth keeping in mind as you stand next to it.

Originally the column was topped by three serpent heads supporting a golden bowl, and the shaft itself is formed from three intertwined snakes. The gold is long gone, and the heads were lost centuries ago, though one of the surviving jaw fragments is now kept in the Istanbul Archaeology Museums nearby. What remains is the sunken lower section of the coiled bronze, standing in a small pit below the current street level, which is roughly where the ancient racetrack floor once was. It sits along the strip now called At Meydani, the old Hippodrome, between the German Fountain and the Egyptian Obelisk.

Practically speaking, the Serpent Column is an open-air monument in a public square, so there's no ticket, no queue, and no set hours. You can see it any time. Most people come across it as part of a walk through the Hippodrome area, which lines up neatly with a visit to the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia, both a short stroll away. It doesn't need much time on its own, but a guide or a bit of background turns it from an odd lump of bronze into one of the more remarkable survivals in the whole old city.