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Istanbul is one of those amazing cities where the sheer density and richness of the history to be found there is almost hard to take in. Era stacked on era stacked on era, civilizations borrowing from each other's buildings, two thousand year old columns used as bus stops etc etc

I guess maybe Rome comes close but even then it doesn't have the sheer variety of Istanbul

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The shape of Rome is a beautiful article on what you are describing with regards to, well, Rome: https://www.exurbe.com/the-shape-of-rome/

Rome is where my mind went too, reading gp's description. But yeah, I guess Istanbul might indeed be even more dense and layered than Rome. Too bad it's not getting as much attention by (western?) scholars; would be great to read something like that on Istanbul as well!

Denser? Probably - if anything because Rome's population was more spread out to start with and numbers fell fairly dramatically at various points.

More layered? I doubt it. Byzantium was much more stable for centuries, Rome was officially and unofficially conquered several times and mutated fashions very often. Obviously the differences might look more striking in Istanbul because of the Ottoman conquest.

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