I came across this reconstruction of the city of Constantinople or Byzantium, later Istanbul, in 1200 AD via Vivid Maps. I hadn't seen this site before, but it is worth a browse because it does contain some interesting maps. The original map comes from the Byzantium1200 website. The Byzantium 1200 project aims to create computer reconstructions of the Byzantine Monuments located in Istanbul as of the year 1200 AD. This, too, is worth a browse.
By 1200, Constantinople (the capital of the Byzantine or Eastern Roman Empire) was reduced in size, but it remained the largest and wealthiest city in Europe, a position it had occupied since the mid fifth century. The city was protected by massive walls that remained unbreached for 900 years before the city was taken in 1204 by the Crusader armies of the Fourth Crusade.
Looking back at past posts, the following is a somewhat random selection linked in some way to the city or the Byzantine Empire:
- March 1, 2008 Saturday Morning Musings - Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian
- December 18, 2008 Byzantium, Turtledove and the power of imagination in history
- December 20, 2008 Saturday Morning Musings - Byzantium, ARIA and Australian public policy
- December 29, 2008 Cultural change and indigenous Australia
- January 21, 2009 Byzantium finished
- January 22, 2009 Byzantium, agriculture and the movement of peoples
- October 29, 2010 Rethymno and the complicated history of Crete
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