Arasta Çarşısı

This guide to Arasta Çarşısı in Istanbul traces the market street built behind the Sultan Ahmed Mosque in 1609 to fund its daily upkeep — candlelighters, cooks, scholars — through shop rents paid by Ottoman cavalrymen buying saddles and tack. It follows the street through a 1912 fire that left it in ruins for decades, and to the British archaeologists who arrived in the 1930s to excavate the site. Look down as you browse the carpet and ceramic stalls — the ground beneath them has more to it than cobblestones.