At the Sultan's Door

Posted by Suby and Sinem (Milton Keynes, United Kingdom) on 17 September 2006 in People & Portrait.

Sinem In The House

"We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep."
William Shakespeare, The Tempest

Two tourists chilling at the Sultan's door, drained by the oppressive Istanbul heat and worn out after hours of sight seeing, the woman peacefully sleeping on the man's lap, in front of the Sultan's door by the harem terrace at Topkapi Palace.

The very door Sultans and their thousand concubines, eunuchs, servants, viziers, janissaries have walked through, the very terrace overlooking the cool blue waters of the Bosphorus thirty six Ottoman sultans have gazed into over seven centuries.

Seven hundred years on... Sultans go to dust, it's the waters of the Bosphorus, their palaces, their terraces, their doors that stand the test of time, evidence of once glamorous life for weary tourists to look, ponder and fall asleep on.

Words and photography by Sinem

"Ars longa, vita brevis."