Kalenderhane Mosque

The Kalenderhane Mosque is defined by its deep, layered history, sitting as a red-brick and stone structure in the shadow of the ancient Aqueduct of Valens. Originally a Byzantine church dating largely to the twelfth century, it rests atop the ruins of a fifth-century Roman bathhouse. Following the Ottoman conquest in fourteen fifty-three, Sultan Mehmed the Second granted the building to the Kalenderi dervishes, whose residence there gave the site its name, meaning the house of the Kalender.