Cankurtaran–Ahırkapı–Sarayburnu Coastal Line Railway Corridor and Photographer Sierra’s Route

The Cankurtaran–Ahırkapı–Sarayburnu coastal line and railway corridor is a concrete urban area where, between 1912 and 1922 and throughout the early Republican era, unregistered burials and rubble fields concentrated due to physical catastrophes, demographic disruptions, and topographical isolation. It constitutes the exact urban axis traversed and captured by photographer Sarai Sierra.

The historical stratification along this route, ground morphology, municipal police (Zabıta) enforcement records, and their spatial intersection with Sierra’s route are detailed below:

1. 1912 İshakpaşa Fire and the “Harikzede” (Fire Victim) Rubble Fields

• Urban Destruction (June 3, 1912): The great İshakpaşa fire, originating from Sultanahmet and the İshakpaşa Quarter and descending down the slopes of Cankurtaran to the Sea of Marmara coast (Ahırkapı), completely destroyed hundreds of traditional wooden dwellings.
• Rubble and Cavity Layer: Due to lack of fiscal budget and wartime conditions (Balkan Wars), the area could not be reconstructed for decades. Basements, cellar cavities, dry wells, and cistern remnants of destroyed buildings remained as open rubble fields (fire-victim plots / harikzede arsaları).
• Shelter and Concealment Zone: Balkan refugees arriving from Rumelia and local fire victims established makeshift shanties and survived amidst these ruins, city wall bases, and vault entrances.
• Photography Route Intersection: This urban blight zone, where fire ruins merged with the sea walls, formed the primary shooting ground entered by Sierra to photograph urban ruins and architectural texture (urbex).

2. Use of the Marmara Sea Walls and Boukoleon Vaults

• Natural and Historical Shelters: The Byzantine-era Marmara sea walls, the marble-framed remnants of the Boukoleon Palace, and antique vaulted corridors along the Cankurtaran shore were blind zones devoid of street illumination and municipal night patrols.
• Toll-Free and Unregistered Night Burials: Refugee families unable to afford the “Ruhsat-ı Defn” (Burial Permit) fee required by the Municipal Health Directorate (Şehremaneti Sıhhiye Müdüriyeti), cemetery transportation costs, or black-market shroud fabric secretly buried their unregistered infants—who perished from starvation and epidemics (cholera, typhus, dysentery)—into shallow pits excavated by dislodging stones inside these vaults at night, disguising them under rubble.
• Photography Route Intersection: Sierra directly ventured into these vaulted passageways formed by the Boukoleon Palace and the Marmara wall fortifications to photograph stone masonry and architectural arch perspectives.

3. The Rumeli Railway Trench and Infrastructure Culverts

• Isolated Railway Corridor: The Sirkeci–Yedikule railway line, commissioned in 1872, formed a sheltered axis physically severed from the urban fabric by deep cuttings, embankments, and high stone retaining walls in the Cankurtaran area.
• Culverts and Embankments: Ballast beds along the tracks, stormwater drainage culverts, and soil slips behind retaining walls served as covert paths to avoid municipal watchmen patrolling the inner neighborhoods. Zabıta logs explicitly record infant remains concealed within railway culvert voids and slope embankments.
• Photography Route Intersection: Upon rounding Sarayburnu from Sirkeci and reaching Cankurtaran, Sierra directly descended into this railway corridor, continuing her trek along the ballast stones, railway ties, and culvert openings.

4. Ahırkapı Coastal Rocks and Surrounding Small Hazires (Cemetery Gardens)

• Coastal Strip: Prior to the construction of the coastal road embankment (Kennedy Avenue), sea waves directly battered the city wall structures and railway stone revetments. Unclaimed infant corpses wrapped in bundles or wicker mats left among coastal storm rocks around Ahırkapı Lighthouse were repeatedly documented by Maritime Health and Naval patrol detachments.
• Wall Scaling at Akbıyık and Small Hazires: Locked courtyard walls of the Akbıyık Mosque and surrounding neighborhood chapels (mescids) in inner Cankurtaran were scaled during nocturnal hours to perform shallow interments in hazire corners away from watchmen. Fresh graves discovered by early-morning congregants or shrine keepers were officially reported to the Zabıta as “unregistered clandestine burials.”
• Photography Route Intersection: The vantage points where Sierra framed the Ahırkapı Lighthouse, sea horizon, and stone masonry of the coastal ramparts along the shoreline from Sarayburnu to Ahırkapı are topographically contiguous with these burial sites.

5. Law Enforcement Logs and Administrative Interventions

• Dersaadet Zabıta Records: Interrogation records of the General Directorate of Police (Emniyet-i Umumiye) and the Municipality (Şehremaneti) document that individuals apprehended at night around Cankurtaran city wall bases with pickaxes, shovels, or suspicious bundles explicitly testified that they could not afford the transportation to official extramural cemeteries outside the walls (Edirnekapı/Topkapı) or the municipal fees, compelling them to bury their children in these stone cavities.
• Meccanen (Gratis/Pauper) Burial Decrees: As uncontrolled interments on coastal ramparts and fire ruins escalated, threatening the contamination of well waters and the sea with cholera and typhus, the Ottoman government enacted special imperial decrees in 1916 and 1919, instituting mandatory “Meccanen Defin” (state-subsidized indigent burial) protocols for refugees inhabiting the Cankurtaran and Fatih ruins.
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