İç Bedesten (Inner Covered Market)
The İç Bedesten is the oldest stone trading hall in Istanbul's Grand Bazaar, commissioned by Sultan Mehmed II between 1455 and 1461 to fund the upkeep of the Hagia Sophia. Built with forty-four vaulted stone cellars, the structure features a Byzantine eagle carved above its East Gate. Today, nearly one hundred twenty antique dealers operate inside this historic fortified market.
Istanbul · from the walk “Sultans, Spices & Hidden Streets” · audio ~4 min · Generated
İç Bedesten, Kapalıçarşı, Beyazıt, Fatih, İstanbul
- Sultan Mehmed II commissioned the İç Bedesten in 1455 to generate revenue for maintaining the Hagia Sophia.
- Inside the İç Bedesten, merchants secured valuables inside forty-four windowless vaulted stone cellars called Mahzens.
- The theft of thirty thousand gold coins from the İç Bedesten in 1591 shocked the entire city of Istanbul.
- The slave market operating near the İç Bedesten was officially abolished in 1846 under Sultan Abdulmejid.
Why was the İç Bedesten built in Istanbul's Grand Bazaar?
You're standing inside the oldest heartbeat of the Grand Bazaar... the İç bedesToN, also known as the Jevahir bedesToN. This thick-walled stone chamber is where it All began.......... In the winter of fourteen fifty-five, just two years after Sultan Mehmed the Second conquered Constantinople, he ordered a fortress-like trading hall to be built on this very slope between the ancient Roman forums of Constantine and Theodosius. Construction finished in fourteen sixty-one, and every coin of rent collected here was funneled into a single purpose... funding the upkeep of the Hagia Sofia. That's right. This market was built as a money engine for one of the world's greatest buildings.......... But look up at the East Gate, the Kuyumcular Kapisi, the Jewellers' Gate. Carved into the stone above it, you'll find a Byzantine eagle... a Comnenian imperial eagle with wings spread wide. Scholars have debated for centuries whether this relief proves that a Byzantine trading structure stood here Before the Ottomans ever arrived. The seventeenth century traveler Evliya Çelebi saw that eagle and offered his own poetic interpretation... that profit and trade are like a wild bird, and the bedesToN is where you tame them with sweet words.......... Inside these walls, merchants kept gold, jewels, and precious documents locked in forty-four vaulted cellars called Mahzens... windowless stone rooms with no external openings. The security was legendary. When thirty thousand gold coins were stolen from this building in fifteen ninety-one, the entire city of Istanbul was shaken, and the crime was discussed for weeks. An English traveler wrote in the eighteen seventies that a casual tour of the İç bedesToN could easily ruin a few Rothschild families.......... But this place holds a darker history, too. Besides jewels and silk, slaves were traded in and around this bedesToN. A French visitor in the fifteen fifties, Nicolas de Nicolay, described seeing "an infinite number of Christian slaves" sold here alongside rings, precious stones, and furs. That market near the bedesToN, the Esir Pazari, continued a practice that had existed even in Byzantine times. It was finally shut down in eighteen forty-six under Sultan Abdulmejid.......... Today, those same heavy stone walls shelter antique dealers and curiosity merchants, and nearly one hundred twenty shops still operate within this single structure. From Ottoman coins to Byzantine icons, this is where Istanbul's past refuses to stay buried.