The Serpent Column is arguably the oldest object standing in Istanbul. Cast from melted-down Persian weapons after the Battle of Plataea in 479 BC, it began life at Delphi as the base of a golden tripod dedicated to Apollo. The gold disappeared centuries before the column did. What remained were three intertwined serpents, coils inscribed with the names of thirty-one Greek city-states who had held the line against Persia.

Constantine the Great brought it to Constantinople in 324 AD, placing it on the spine of his Hippodrome. The serpent heads survived empires and the Ottoman conquest, only to lose their jaws to sultans keen to prove a point. One surviving jaw is now in the Archaeological Museum nearby.

VoiceMap's self-guided audio tours use the column to trace Istanbul's extraordinary depth, connecting a Greek battlefield, Roman imperial ambition, and the Ottoman city that grew up around monuments nobody quite removed.