Forty years of dendrochronological collecting in the Eastern Mediterranean have until now been stymied by the lack of suitable timbers from the 500 years on either side of the Year 1. Roman buildings have plenty of beam-beds but no preserved timbers. Recently an enormous $5 billion metro/subway project through downtown Istanbul/Constantinople has provided the missing link: some 4000 oak pilings from a long series of Byzantine and Late Roman docks and other structures. Three long chronologies, adding up to 1441 years so far, have enabled us to fill a number of gaps and to build a continuo
