Yerebatan Cistern

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The Yerebatan Cistern or Basilica Cistern is the largest of several hundred ancient cisterns that lie beneath the city of Constantinople in Turkey. The cistern, located 500 feet (150 metres) southwest of the Hagia Sofia, was built in the 6th century CE, during the reign of Byzantine Emperor Justinian I.

History

Niccolò Polo had the first of Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad's Masyaf Keys hidden in the Yerebatan Cistern in 1257. In 1511, the Italian Mentor Ezio Auditore da Firenze entered the cistern via a secret passage in the old Polo trading post, now a bookshop run by Sofia Sartor. There, he found that the Byzantine Templars had been searching for the Key for thirteen months, without success. Ezio stealthily made his way through the Yerebatan Cistern and recovered the Key, as well as a map to the location of the other keys.

Gallery

• Artwork
  Artwork
• Ezio gazing at the "Peacock-eyed" column.
  Ezio gazing at the "Peacock-eyed" column.