Gate of Salutation: Topkapı's Second Court & the Harem
Why is it significant?
Stop in front of the gate with two slim octagonal towers capped by pointed cones, like a castle from a fairy tale. This is Babüsselam, the Gate of Salutation, the middle gate of Topkapı Palace. For centuries, only the sultan rode through it on horseback.
Key Facts
| Place | Gate of Salutation: Topkapı's Second Court & the Harem |
|---|---|
| Address | Cankurtaran, Topkapı Sarayı, Babüsselam, 34122 Fatih/İstanbul, Türkiye |
| Geo Coordinates | 41.01080, 28.98340 |
| Part of Walk | Sultans' Gates: Topkapı, Gülhane & the Sublime Porte in Istanbul |
| Generated | Generated |
Stop in front of the gate with two slim octagonal towers capped by pointed cones, like a castle from a fairy tale. This is Babüsselam, the Gate of Salutation, the middle gate of Topkapı Palace. For centuries, only the sultan rode through it on horseback. Everyone else, however grand, dismounted and walked.
Look for the place beside the gate where the so-called example stones stood. On them, the heads of disgraced officials were sometimes put on show, a warning to anyone passing in or out. And in the first court behind you, tradition says, the executioner washed his hands and his sword at a small fountain. The palace was a place of gardens and poetry... and of sudden, quiet death.
Beyond this gate lies the second court, a park of cypresses with peacocks once wandering on the grass. On the left is the Imperial Council hall under a tall tower, the Tower of Justice, visible from far across the city. The grand vizier and his ministers met there, and above them was a gilded grille. The sultan could sit behind it and listen without being seen. Nobody ever knew whether the ruler was there, so everybody spoke as if he was.
Behind that hall begins the Harem, the private quarters of the sultan's family: his mother, the valide sultan, his wives and concubines, his children, and the eunuchs who guarded them. It was not the playground of Western fantasy but a hard school of power. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, women such as Hürrem and Kösem shaped the empire from these rooms, and princes were kept in a guarded apartment known as the kafes, the cage, sometimes for decades.
The sultans lived here for nearly four centuries, until they moved to the new waterfront palace of Dolmabahçe in the 1850s, and in 1924 Topkapı became a museum. Now turn back from the gate and take the path that slopes down to the left, towards the buildings that hold the treasures of a dozen lost civilisations.