Yılanlı Sütun - Free Audio Guide

The Yılanlı Sütun, commonly referred to as the Serpent Column, is an ancient bronze monument created to commemorate the Greek victory over the Persians at Plataea circa 479 BCE. Cast from war spoils and originally dedicated at Delphi, it consisted of entwined serpents that once supported a lost golden tripod and carried inscriptions listing the Greek city‑states involved. In the early fourth century CE Constantine relocated the column to Constantinople’s Hippodrome, integrating it into the imperial ceremonial setting. Over successive centuries the upper parts were damaged or removed, yet the surviving portion in Istanbul endures as a striking relic of antiquity and of the Byzantine and Ottoman palimpsest. Situated in the open Hippodrome (At Meydanı), the monument bears deep cultural resonance as a shared and contested symbol of communal memory and metallurgical artistry.