Episode 2 · Credits

Fall Asleep to Chariot Racing in Constantinople, 6th Century

Season one, Constantinople: A City Through Time. Every image and sound we did not make ourselves, with its author, licence and source.

Photographs under Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY)

Used under the licence named for each. No changes beyond cropping, scaling and slow camera movement.

• Obelisk of Theodosius (8394685988) Photo by Jorge Láscar from Australia · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
• Serpent Column (8394621182) Photo by Jorge Láscar from Australia · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
• Obelisk of Theodosius, lower base, northeast side (1991) Photo by Mark Landon · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
• Obelisk of Theodosius, lower base, southwest side (1991) Photo by Mark Landon · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
• Obelisk of Theodosius, upper base, northeast side (1991) Photo by Mark Landon · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
• Istanbul, Obelisk of Theodosius Photo by Mikhail Malykh · CC BY 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
• Istanbul, İstanbul, Turkey (panoramio 394) Photo by Mikhail Malykh · CC BY 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
• Istanbul. Hippodrome 006 (obelisk base) Photo by Georges Jansoone (JoJan) · CC BY 2.5 · Wikimedia Commons
• Yılanlı Sütun, Serpent Column Istanbul Photo by Sonse · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Public domain and CC0

Free of copyright restrictions. Listed for transparency and to thank the institutions that share them.

• Gold Solidus of Justinian I (538–565) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Open Access · CC0 · metmuseum.org
• Glass beaker with victorious charioteer (4th century CE) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Open Access · CC0 · metmuseum.org
• Empress Theodora and Members of Her Court (early 20th-century copy of the 6th-century mosaic) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Open Access · CC0 · metmuseum.org
• Circus Maximus, from Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae (1553) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Open Access · CC0 · metmuseum.org
• Procession through the Hippodrome, Constantinople (Aubry de La Mottraye, Travels, London 1724, vol. I, plate 15) The Met, via Wikimedia Commons · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons
• Mosaic of the horses of Sorothus (plate, Bulletin archéologique, 1888) Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · source
• Das Denkmal des Porphyrios, base of the monument to Porphyrius (AthMitt 1880, pl. 16) Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · source
• Onofrio Panvinio, Circi sive Hippodromi Constantinopolitani (the Hippodrome of Constantinople) Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · source
• James Robertson, Obelisks in the Hippodrome, with the Serpent Column between them (1850s) Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · source
• Mosaic of victorious charioteers, Mérida (MNAR CE26389), full view and detail Wikimedia Commons · CC0 · full view · detail
• Horses of Basilica San Marco Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · source
• Sphendone of the Hippodrome of Constantinople (2026) Wikimedia Commons · CC0 · source
• The Bosphorus Strait splits the city of Istanbul (ISS Expedition 72, iss072e574770, 29 January 2025) NASA · Public domain · images.nasa.gov

AI-generated images and moving scenes

Everything not listed above is an AI-generated reconstruction, made by us for this episode. These are not historical photographs or artefacts.

• Moving scenes in the opening minutes Google Flow (Veo 3.1 Lite), from starting frames made with Nano Banana 2.1 · labs.google
• Still frames with slow depth camera movement Nano Banana 2.1 in Google Flow, depth movement made locally
• Most still images, ten minutes to the end FLUX.2 [dev] via fal.ai
• Some still images in the second hour Stable Diffusion XL, run locally
• Three further reconstructions ChatGPT (OpenAI) image generation, marked “AI reconstruction” on screen

Audio

• Burning Fireplace, Crackling Fire Sounds (Aachen) visionear, Freesound · CC0 · freesound.org

Narration

• The narrator's voice Synthetic voice, Microsoft Azure neural voice. The script is researched from the sources listed under the video and read by a person before release.

Spotted a missing or wrong credit?

Tell us in the comments under the video or at thesomniachronicles@gmail.com, and we will correct it.