Abstract:
The Pantokrator Hospital is the best understood of all Byzantine Hospitals. Almost one third of the monastic charter of the Pantokrator Monastery is devoted to the hospital. The archaeological ruins around the remains of the Pantokrator Monastery (Zeyrek Mosque), however, have not received as much attention. The ruins around the Zeyrek Mosque consist of cisterns, water conduits, terraces, and other Byzantine structures. They paint a complicated and yet important picture of the monastery and its hospital. Despite the fact that a previous study by Alice Taylor had concluded that the hospital was most likely southwest of the Zeyrek Mosque, it is more likely that the Pantokrator Hospital was located north of the mosque on a set of terraces recorded by Ernst Mamboury. Based on the newest survey of the Byzantine water supply by James Crow, Jonathan Bardill, and Richard Bayliss, the latest understand of Byzantine medicine, and a critical hypothesis of the previous history of the hospital by Paul Magdalino, it is evident that this area provided not only the most likely location but also the best one for this important l2'h century institution due to its proximity to a key Byzantine water line and the main streets of Constantinople.
