Lycus (river of Constantinople)

"wolf"; Turkish: Bayrampaşa Deresi) is a stream, now vaulted over, that flowed in Constantinople (today's Istanbul), which was important for historical reasons.

[2][4] The creek continued its course inside the walls, in a valley made fertile by the watercourse, named for that reasonYenibahce ("new garden" in Turkish) by Turks.

[6] There it turned abruptly southward, touching the heights of Avretpazar, running just before its mouth through a plain called Aksaray ("white palace" in Turkish), perhaps after a building inhabited by Empress Irene in the early ninth century.

[2] The Lycus valley was never much inhabited in the Byzantine period, but it was a favored place for the settlement of Greek Orthodox monasteries:[9] famous were those of Dios and Ikasia (or Cassia), Cocorobion and Lips.

[10] Ancient Ottoman maps of the city show that the lower course of the creek, south of the Lips monastery, had become a subterranean waterway.

[12] The Ottoman sultan Mehmet II was fully aware of this, and in fact the plan of the siege included, after the wearing down of the walls in the Blachernae sector, the final attack in the creek valley.

Map of Byzantine Constantinople. The Lycus runs through the city from northwest to south
Constantinople map from 1860 to 1870 with the Lycus Valley in evidence within the historical peninsula
The Lycus valley near the walls with the Mihrimah Sultan Mosque in the background in an 1836 engraving
The Lycus valley at the Theodosian walls looking north at the end of 19th century
Adnan Menderes Caddesi , the avenue which covers the Lycus bed