nverted
into market gardens or left waste, and its chapel has been a desecrated
pile. But its proud name still haunts the site, calling to mind
political relations which have long ceased to exist. The chapel stood at
the north-western end of the residence and formed an integral part of
the structure. For high up in the exterior side of the south-eastern
wall are the mortises which held the beams supporting the floor of the
upper story of the residence; while lower down in the same wall is a
doorway which communicated with the residence on that level. Some of the
substructures of the residence are still visible. It is not impossible
that the house, or at least some portion of it, was an old Byzantine
mansion. Mordtmann,[487] indeed, suggests that it was the palace to
which Phrantzes refers under the name Trullus ([Greek: en to
Troulo]).[488] But that palace stood to the north of the church of the
Pammakaristos (Fetiyeh Jamissi), and had disappeared when Phrantzes
wrote. Gerlach,[489] moreover, following the opinion of his Greek
friends, distinguishes between the Trullus and the Moldavian residence,
and places the site of the former near the Byzantine chapel now
converted into Achmed Pasha Mesjedi, to the south of the church of the
Pammakaristos.[490]

[Illustration: PLATE LXXX.
BOGDAN SERAI. APSE OF THE UPPER CHAPEL.]

[Illustration: BOGDAN SERAI. A PENDENTIVE OF THE DOME.]

[Illustration: BOGDAN SERAI. THE CHAPEL FROM THE NORTH-WEST.
_To face page 280._]

Opinions differ in regard to the dedication of the chapel.
Paspates,[491] following the view current among the gardeners who
cultivated the market-gardens in the neighbourhood, maintained that the
chapel was dedicated to S. Nicholas. Hence the late Canon Curtis, of the
Crimean Memorial Church in Constantinople, believed that this was the
church of SS. Nicholas and Augustine of Canterbury, founded by a Saxon
noble who fled to Constantinople after the Norman conquest of England.
What is certain is that in the seventeenth century the chapel was
dedicated to the Theotokos. Du Cange mentions it under the name,
Ecclesia Deiparae Serai Bogdaniae.[492]

Mordtmann has proved[493] that Bogdan Serai marks the site of the
celebrated monastery and church of S. John the Baptist in Petra,--the
title 'in Petra' being derived from the neighbouring mass of rock, which
the Byzantines knew as [Greek: Palaia Petra], and which the Turks style
Kesme Kaya, the Chopped Rock.