Mosaic Museum in Istanbul

One of the most beautiful, ancient and most damaged from the time museum of Istanbul is Mosaic Museum. It would be better to say that not its content was damaged with time, but its walls. The Museum is located in the palace built in Constantinople back in the early days of the Byzantine Empire. By hypothesis of scientists, here was the residence of the emperors. It was in its venerable age because the palace was abandoned in the IXth century of our era!

Since then eleven centuries passed and the palace was almost completely covered with soil. Maybe it saved its unique mosaics that survived the invasion of Ottoman Turks, not lovers of images of people, which opposes the Muslim religion. The palace was resting under the ground during the looting of Constantinople by the crusaders, survived the siege and fall of the city, the renaming in Istanbul and survived the entire Ottoman Empire... Only in the mid 20th century, already in the Turkish Republic, archaeologists dug up the palace by accident. They were surprised to learn that the excavations are held in the middle of the Great Palace of the Byzantine emperors. This is all the more surprising that the palace was located exactly under the famous Blue Mosque, built in the city in 16 century. Fortunately, a part of the palace was not under the mosque, but under the shopping street, adjacent to the Muslim temple.

In this surprising museum you can see the most ancient mosaics in Istanbul. They count sixteen centuries, they date back to 5 - 6 centuries, the very beginning of the Byzantine Empire. That is, they are much older than the mosaics of St. Sophia and Kariye Church (Chora). Therefore, the images on the mosaics are not religious, but still imbued with the spirit of antiquity and ancient Rome. Here one can see the playing lions, beautiful children with pitchers, pictires of hunting for wild animals and gathering of crops. In fact, the mosaics of the Great Palace at the level of subjects are no different from the mosaics of an ancient villa near Rome of era of Nero. By the way, here you can see images of the pagan god Pan and a lot of religious scenes not related to Christianity, but... to paganism.

Visitors of Mosaic Museum in Istanbul, admiring the unique images, also learn that in Constantinople they had their own school and that in the 5th century AD in the city there already existed... impressionism. Though Late, but still impressionism. So one of the pillars of the French school of Impressionism - Monet - was late with his teachings for about 15 centuries... Also you will be amazed by the magnificent work of the masters, composing their pictures out of small pieces of stone so that they look like paintings from the top.

You will look at all this splendor from the top, from special metal galleries lifted especially for the visitors. You will see the mosaic floors of the Grand Palace, as well as the capitals.

The museum is open every day except Monday, from 9:00 to 16:30. The entrance fee is 7 YTL, which is about 4 U.S. dollars.