Istanbul, Day 2

Fresh off my trip to the Turkish Bath (best $40 I've ever spent), here is some info from my second day in Istanbul. Today we did a walking tour of the major ancient sites of the city, including the Hippodrome, the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia, and the Classical Museum. Pictures and explanation are below. We're having a great time, heading out tomorrow early for a bus ride over to the Asian side of the city and down the western coast of Anatolia. We'll be stopping for the day in Troy.

Here is the Blue Mosque, built in 1609-1616 as an imperial mosque. It is a big mosque, but not the biggest. It has 6 minarets, which is very rare. In fact, when it was built, only Mecca had 6, so the architect went to Mecca and added a 7th there.













Here is the amazing dome of the Blue Mosque, covered with decorative tiles













The inside of the mosque (liek them all) is covered with individual prayer carpets. At the front there you see the sacred niche, which faces southeast towards Mecca.










From the Blue Mosque we head across the street to the Hagia Sophia (this picture taken from the steps of the Blue Mosque). The Hagia Sophia (this is actually the 3rd on the site) was built by the emperor Justinian in the 6th century. It was a major church until 1453, when it became a Mosque (addition of minarets). In 1935, it was converted to a museum. It is slightly larger than the Blue Mosque, and it is an interesting example of how a church is converted to a mosque.





Here is the dome of the Hagia Sophia, where you see the gold mosaics all around, but also the large Arabic panels that have been placed all around. There is scaffolding in the middle, as they are doing major restoration work. This place is enormous.









Here is the sacred niche at Hagia Sophia. You can see that the church wasn't originally built to the southeast (like the mosques woudl be) and thus the niche is slightly off-center, as it points to Mecca. Right above the niche is a mosaic of the Virgin and child. Interesting mix of icons.














An example of the gold mosaics which are all around the Hagia Sophia. This one depicts Christ in the center, flanked by Mary and John the Baptist. Others all around depict Christ flanked by various emperors.










From the Hagia Sophia we went and spent the afternoon at the Museum, which has an amazing collection of things from the Ancient Near East and the Hellenistic and Roman periods. I hope these aren't too boring, but this stuff is fascinating.

These are the lions that formed part of the Ishtar gates (the other part is in Berlin). The Ishtar gates were the gates to Nebuchudnezzar's temple in Babylon. All you Bible buffs will recall that this is the king who conquered Jerusalem in 586BCE. These are the gates of his palace. Very Very old!











This is the Siloam Inscription. During the reign of King Hezekiah (of Judah in the 7th century BCE) they built a tunnel from outside the walls of Jerusalem to inside them. Where the two digging parties met they made this inscription, which says something like "we heard the hammers banging on the other side..."

Okay, I'll stop boring you with stuff, so last one. This is the coolest thing there. It is a stone from the Jerusalem temple (before it was destroyed in 70CE) which reads (in Greek), basically "stay out of here if you are a Gentile, or risk death." Amazing to have an artifact of the Jerusalem temple.







So as you can see, there was a lot to do in Istanbul. Other than the amazing churches and mosques, and the museum, it is a really neat city with a culture which differs vastly from our own (and a language which is impossible to comprehend). We'll be back at the end of our trip, but I suggest you all put Istanbul on your travel plans. More later!