Hurmalı Han and Balkapan Han, Istanbul

"On the market street beside the Golden Horn stand a number of old hans from the early Ottoman period. The two oldest — Hurmalı Han, the Han for Dates, and Balkapan Han, the Han of the Honey-Store — are believed to date from the medieval Byzantine era; one authority ascribes Hurmalı Han's long narrow courtyard to the sixth or seventh century." ¹

'Balkapan Han is mentioned by Evliya Çelebi, who says that in the mid-seventeenth century it belonged to the Egyptian honey merchants. It is chiefly interesting for the extensive Byzantine vaults beneath it, reached by a stairway from the courtyard: great rectangular brick pillars support massive herringbone brick vaulting over at least 2,000 square metres — doubtless one of the granaries or storage depots known to have existed on this site since at least the fourth or fifth century, part of the ancient market quarter that became the earliest commercial centre of Ottoman Istanbul.' ¹