Turkey · 13th century
The Palace of the Porphyrogenitus (Greek: τὸ Παλάτιον τοῦ Πορφυρογεννήτου), known in Turkish as the Tekfur Sarayı ("Palace of the Sovereign"), is a late 13th-century Byzantine palace in the north-western part of the old city of Constantinople (present-day Istanbul, Turkey). An annex of the greater palace complex of Blachernae, it is the best preserved of the three Byzantine palaces to survive in the city (together with the ruins of the Boukoleon Palace; and the ruins of the Great Palace of Constantinople with its surviving substructures, retrieved mosaics and standing Magnaura section), and one of the few relatively intact examples of late Byzantine secular architecture in the world.
In 2021 it opened to the public as a museum after complete restoration and reroofing. It displays examples of the types of pottery and tiles made in the abandoned palace buildings in the 18th century.
Text adapted from “Palace of the Porphyrogenitus” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Palace of the Porphyrogenitus ranks #503 of 9,079 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #15 of the 129 mapped in Turkey. Founded c. 1275, it is older than 65% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 1080 atlas entries founded in the 13th century. Its Wikipedia articles were opened 8,386 times in the last 60 days, more than 92% of the atlas. 24 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Istanbul, 3 km away. See how Turkey compares in the castle statistics.
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