The End of Day Five in Istanbul; Day Two in Sultanahmet

Day five in Istanbul and day two in Sultanahmet are the same day. I realized after my, "Sultanahmet: Day One" post that I might be creating a little confusion for my readers. Still confused? Work it out.

One more thing...

As you probably came to realize after reading my last post, the Hagia Sofia was a bona fide brass-plated four-door mind blower. The most amazing "wrought by man" thing I have ever seen. The only time in my life I can remember being humbled to that degree by an inanimate object was when I spent a week riding a raft through the Grand Canyon thirty-some-odd years ago. This was a completely different thing.

The Grand Canyon is a "wrought by God" thing. After bobbing along the river that wends its way through the bowels of the earth at the bottom of that canyon for a couple of days, I came to realize that mankind in general, and Ado in particular, really don't amount to much on this big ol' rock we call earth. The time it took for water and gravity to carve out those amazing, colorful rock walls, one grain of sand at a time and create a canvas for setting and rising suns to splash with their light-filled palettes is so great as to be unfathomable by mortal men. A few million years from now humans will be long gone and long forgotten from this earth and that river and that canyon will be doing exactly what they're doing today. In a much shorter time span than that, I too will be long gone and long forgotten.

But the Hagia Sofia didn't make me ponder my place in the universe by overshadowing my meager lifespan. It shook me because, confronted by this manmade three-dimensional kaleidoscope of marble and mosaic the size of a battleship, it made me realize how little I had accomplished in my fifty-four rides around the sun. It made me realize what I might have done and reminded me of those things I have not done. It reminded me of the greatness man is capable of and of which I have fallen so short.

The Grand Canyon knocked the wind out of me with the realization that it exists effortlessly. It exists only because, inexorably through the millenia, it came to be. The Hagia Sofia exists only because 1,474 years ago men imposed their will on mortar and stone and brought it into this world. It exists only because men forced it into existence. Humbling, indeed.

The Great Palace Mosaic Museum

In 1935 a bunch of Scottish archaeologists were digging up some really old stuff in Sultanahmet at the spot where the Arasta Bazaar once stood. They discovered a mosaic covered walkway that was long ago part of the Great Palace of Constantinople. It was a section of a peristyle walkway from one of the palace courtyards and it covers approximately 2,000 square yards. It is ENTIRELY covered in mosaics depicting fantastic and everyday images of life in those times. The fact that people actually walked on these works of art is mind boggling. Art was part of everything they built back in those days and beauty always seemed integral to their plans. In these modern times we could learn a lesson or two from the ancients.

The mosaics are now uncovered and housed in the museum near Sultanahmet square. The museum is not very well know and while we were there it was empty except for me, my cousin Cheryl, my mother and the people who work there. There is a lot to see and the pace is whatever you want it to be. If you ever find yourself in the area, I highly recommend taking the time to see it. Check it out...

The largest contiguous section of walkway that is on display.
We'll call this the left section.

This would be the center section. 

And this would be the right section.

Many of the scenes depict a pastoral lifestyle. A vendor pushing a cart, animals being fed, trees bearing fruit.














Here are children at play.

A man feeding his donkey.

A man taking children for a ride on a camel. Check out how evil the kids look.

In addition to the workaday images there are also images of fantasy and violence. These Romans, they knew how to party, boy!

Yeah,  I've seen a deer eat a snake before. What?

Don't you feed lizards to your horned, winged lion?

Here is some some of your standard leopard-on-antelope violence. 

And your always to be expected man-on-animal violence. 

Evidently the deer didn't get to this snake in time.

Here are some detail photos from the mosaics above and some other detail pictures from scenes I haven't included. If you click on the pictures they will enlarge. 40,000 tiles per square meter. Wow. I don't think they had eyeglasses back then. 

This pretty much concludes my time in Istanbul. The next day we boarded a bus for the nine-hour ride down to the city of Izmir on the Aegean coast. What? A bus, you say? For nine freakin' hours?? How horrible that must have been! But you are wrong, dear readers. Fret not. In the next post you will see that in other parts of the world there are things they do better than we do them here. Greyhound could learn a thing or two, lemme tell ya. 

Better yet, lemme show ya. 

See you next time...