The Yedikule Treasury
Once inside the Fortress, the seven towers stand tall and foreboding, feeling completely impenetrable. One such tower, named "the treasure tower" in modernity, gives a glimpse into the time, just after the Ottoman conquest of Istanbul, when the Yedikule Fortress was used as a treasury for gold, silver jewels and all things precious. According to P.Bammett's "Envisioning Ottoman Wealth: Narrating and Mapping Ottoman "Treasure" in the Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries," the European made map pictured to the left, along with others of its kind, suggest a specific vision of the Yedikule fortress and its message to the world regarding the riches inside, and the type of power it projected. In nearby Istanbul, the Topkaki Palace, "where tribute and booty were received, acknowledged, displayed, and distributed," and "parades of gifts were staged in conjunction with ambassadorial visits, and bags of coins for the payment of the janissaries were displayed in the courtyard," served as a treasury as well. In stark contrast to this flamboyant display of wealth and riches, "Yedikule seems to have represented the sense of the hidden, a place where untold and unseen riches that outsiders, and even insiders, could not tally or imagine, were preserved," a reminder that the most precious secrets were hidden away, inaccessible to anyone, its walls a standing threat to anyone who dare try to penetrate the Ottoman reign. A highly intentional air of mystery and elusiveness made them unknowable, and thereby untouchable.
In its nature as a walled place structured for keeping something precious in in order to keep something noxious out, Bammett compares the fort in this iteration to "a different kind of harem or stronghold, but nonetheless one which is evocative of both the power and the protection of the sultan and his soldier administrators, the askeri. Arms, silver and gold, and knowledge in the form of manuscripts all require royal protection — from the grasp of the greedy or ambitious, and from the gaze of enemies of the empire who might use that knowledge of the empire’s wealth and resources to do it harm." By drawing this comparison to the harem, he displays the way in which walling the precious jewels and information into the fortress serves as a powerful, political, even religious move.
Brummett, Palmira. "Envisioning Ottoman Wealth: Narrating and Mapping Ottoman "Treasure" in the Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries." Oriens 37.1 (2009): 107-22. Web. 6 Nov. 2016.