Unearthing Casa Garibaldi: Subterranean Discoveries in Beyoğlu

Can the restoration of a nineteenth-century building bring to light a fifteen-hundred-year-old secret lying beneath the hurried steps of İstiklal Caddesi? Savaş Özbey’s report in Hürriyet turns on exactly that phase of the work at Casa Garibaldi. Remains surfacing quietly from under the floor slabs had turned a repair job into an archaeological descent into the depths of Istanbul.

The report follows, step by step, how these unexpected Roman-period finds were first noticed and how the research then set about dating the graves. We thought we had a single problem on our hands; in so narrow a space, the moments of pressing the restoration forward while keeping the fragile inheritance of centuries from harm made us forget every other trouble we had.

We had supposed that restoration and excavation, being two kinds of work, would have to wait respectfully upon each other. They fell into step remarkably well. As each of them came to an end, a quiet regret settled over the whole team, each time in turn.

From the state of the excavation on that day to the dilemma of whether the finds should stay where they lay or be moved and displayed, many questions were weighed shoulder to shoulder with the future of the building itself. The details of that interview, which ties the past to the present, are in Hürriyet’s pages of the day, in Savaş Özbey’s careful full-page piece.