luxury hotel amid Byzantine ruins stirs debate over Turkey’s heritage

In Istanbul, luxury hotel amid Byzantine ruins stirs debate over Turkey’s heritage

ISTANBUL, Turkey: Most tourists to Istanbul inevitably make their way to its historic core along the Golden Horn, a peninsula rich in relics and monuments from the mighty Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman empires.

These days, the area is host to a modern-day battle over the expansion of a five-star hotel amid the ruins of an ancient palace.

The dispute pits government-backed developers of a site housing the luxury Four Seasons Hotel, occupying a converted, Ottoman-era prison, against critics who say work on a 60-room annex desecrate the remnants of a palace built by Constantine the Great in the fourth century.

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