Strolling Through Istanbul: The Classic Guide to the City (17 page)

The next room contains sculptures dating from the period of Persian rule in Asia Minor (546–333 B.C.). The two best examples are from Daskylion, both with reliefs showing funeral processions in which mourners are following a cart carrying a sarcophagus.

The room beyond this is devoted to Attic grave stelae with reliefs, along with other sculptures of the classical period (480–323 B.C.). The finest stelae are those of a young athlete from Nisyros, a young warrior from Pella, and one from Amisus (Samsun) showing the deceased bidding farewell to his two young sons. The two most notable sculptures in the round are the head of a horse, provenance unknown, and a statue of Athena from Leptus Magna in Libya, a Roman copy of the Greek original.

The following room has sculptures of the Hellenistic period (323–129 B.C.), the two most famous being representations of Alexander the Great. One, from Pergamum, is a head of Alexander, a third century B.C. copy of the original by Lyssipus. Alexander is here represented in the classic pose which became the archetype for all later representations of him: what Plutarch called his swimming eye and lion’s mane of hair, his mouth slightly open and his head inclined to the left, a strange lost look on his handsome face. The other, from Magnesia-ad-Sipylum, is a statue of Alexander in which he is shown as a young Hercules, another archetypal representation of the young god-king.

The next room has sculptures from Tralles and Magnesia on the Maeander. Here we see the famous Ephebos of Tralles, from the late first century B.C. or early first century A.D. This statue represents a youth resting after exercise; he is standing in a relaxed attitude with a cape draped round him to protect him from the cold, a wistful half-smile on his downcast face.

We now enter the first room of the south wing, devoted to Hellenistic and Roman sculpture. The most noteworthy is a statue of Hermes, a copy of the original by Alcamenes, which stood just outside the Propylaion on the Acropolis of Athens. In the centre of the room there is a large head of the poetess Sappho from Smyrna (Izmir), a Roman copy of the Hellenistic original. The left side of the room is devoted to Roman portrait busts of the first to fourth century A.D., including those of ten emperors ranging from Augustus to Constantine the Great.

The next room has sculptures from Ephesus, Miletus and Aphrodisias. The principal work from Ephesus is a large reclining statue of a river god from the second century A.D. The most outstanding exhibit from Miletus is a statue of Apollo Kitharados, also from the second century A.D. The most notable work from Aphrodisias is a statue of the emperor Valentinian II from the late fourth century A.D.

The last room in this wing is devoted to sculptures of the Roman imperial period. The most striking work here is just to the left inside the doorway. This is a colossal statue of Tyche, the Goddess of Fortune, who is shown holding the child Plutos, God of Wealth, while above them there is a cornucopia filled with fruit and flowers; this was found at Prusias-ad-Hypium and is from the second century A.D.

We now make our way to the new annexe. The ground floor is devoted to Byzantium and its Neighbours, as well as to an exhibition of antiquities found during excavations for the Marmararay Project, a new commuter railway line that will go under the southern end of the Bosphorus from Istanbul to Üsküdar. The exhibit on the first floor is called Istanbul Through the Age; on the second floor is Anatolia and Troy Through the Ages; and on the third floor the theme is the Cultures of Anatolia’s Neighbours.

Byzantium and its Neighbours has exhibits from archaeological sites in Thrace and Bithynia, the regions that bordered the ancient city of Byzantium on its European and Asian sides, respectively. The most fascinating exhibits from Thrace were found in tumuli covering royal graves, particularly a superb bronze head of a warrior with a tightly-fitting helmet, from the fourth century B.C. A notable exhibit from Bithynia is a colossal head of Oceanus from Nicomedeia (Izmit), dating from the second century A.D. Other exhibits are from the ancient Thracian cities of Selymbia (Silivri), Perinthos and Eleonte, and from the Bithynian cities of Chalcedon (Kad
ı
köy), Nicomedeia and Claudiopolis (Bolu), including funerary reliefs, portait busts and marble statues. The exhibits from Byzantine Constantinople include two large marble pedestals, monuments to the famous charioteer Porphyrios commemorating his victories in the Hippodrome. These pedestals, each of which once bore a bronze statue of Porphyrios, were commissioned by the Emperor Anastasius (r. 491–518), and give some measure of the enormous popularity which this charioteer once enjoyed in the Roman era. The pedestals are chiefly of interest because of the sculptures in low relief on their sides, in which are represented lively scenes from the ancient Hippodrome of Constantinople.

The exhibits from the Marmaray Project include objects found in both the old city and in Üsküdar. The main area of excavation has been in the Yeni Kap
ı
district on the Marmara shore of the old city, where a large harbour was established when Constantine the Great founded Constantinople in A.D. 330, and which eventually silted up through alluvial earth deposited by the Lycus River. A team of archaeologists led by Professor Ismail Karamut, head of the Istanbul Archaeological Museum, has discovered the well-preserved remains of more than 30 ships, along with the remnants of piers, warehouses and other structures, including part of the city walls built by Constantine. The most spectacular find was made in 2008, when the skeletons of two adults and two children were unearthed along with the remains of a small Neolithic settlement on the harbour dating from between 6400 B.C. and 5800 B.C., predating the formation of the Bosphorus strait by several centuries. The exhibit includes numerous objects of all types found in the excavations, along with photographs of the sites and exciting videos of the archaeological work in progress, including the preservation of the ancient ships discovered in the harbour.

The first gallery of the Istanbul Through the Ages exhibit is arranged chronologically, beginning with the founding of the ancient Greek city-state of Byzantium in the seventh century B.C. and ending with the Turkish Conquest in 1453. The first part of the exhibit that one sees includes objects ranging from the archaic period through the Roman era, including tools, pottery, household artifacts and funerary monuments. Looking over the balcony here one sees a reconstruction of the façade of the temple of Athena at Assos, dating from the late sixth century B.C. The remaining galleries of the exhibit are arranged topographically, with objects found in various parts of the city and its most important Byzantine monuments. One of these shows the works of art discovered during the restoration of Kalenderhane Camii, the former church of the Kyriotissa (incorrectly identified as St. Saviour Akataleptos); these include frescoes of the life of St. Francis dating from the Latin Occupation of 1204–61, and a beautiful mosaic portait of the Virgin from the pre-iconoclastic period, the only work of this era extant in the city. One particularly fascinating exhibit is a fragment of the porphyry group of the Tetrarchs, a statue of the Emperors of East and West and their Caesars that originally stood in the square known as the Philadelphion on the Marmara slope of the Third Hill. The statue was carried off by the Venetians when the Latins sacked Constantinople in 1204, leaving beyond this fragment, which was rediscovered in 1965 by the Turkish archaeologist Nezih Firatl
ı
. Another interesting exhibit is a fragment of the so-called Serpent Column in the ancient Hippodrome (see Chapter 6). One of the three intertwined bronze serpents that form the column lost its head during the Ottoman period, but a fragment of it was found in 1847 and eventually preserved in the museum. The penultimate gallery has exhibits from Genoese Galata dating from the last two centuries of the Byzantine period, including coats-of-arms of Latin knights who were buried in the church of SS. Paul and Domenic, now known as Arap Camii (see Chapter 20). In the last gallery we see a length of the huge chain that was used by the Byzantines to close the Golden Horn in times of siege. There is also an exhibition of coins from ancient Byzantium and Byzantine Constantinople.

The exhibit on Anatolia and Troy Through the Ages is arranged chronologically, with the various levels in the archaeological site at Troy on one side of the room, ranging from Troy I (3000–2500 B.C.) to Troy IX (250 B.C.-A.D. 400), while on the other side are exhibits from other archaeological sites in Anatolia ranging from the earliest prehistoric periods up to the archaic age.

The exhibit on the Cultures of Anatolia’s Neighbours is dedicated to ancient Syria, Palestine and Cyprus. The most striking exhibit is a recreated hypogeum, or subterranean tomb, from ancient Palmyra in Syria, dated A.D. 108. The sculptural portraits in the hypogeum are originals, taken from a number of funerary monuments in Palymyra’s Valley of the Tombs.

In leaving the new annexe we pass through a room on the second floor of the old museum. The glass cases here contain votive figurines of the classical and Hellenistic periods. In the centre of the room is a colossal bronze statue of the emperor Hadrian from Nicomedeia, dated mid-second century A.D. From the window there is a good view of Çinili Kö
ş
k, the next stop on our itinerary.

We now leave the Archaeological Museum and cross over to Çinili Kö
ş
k, the Tiled Pavilion. This is the oldest Ottoman secular building in Istanbul, built by Sultan Mehmet II in 1472 as an outer pavilion of Topkap
ı
Saray
ı
. It is Persian in design and decoration, a derivation which is emphasized by its long and beautifully written Persian inscription giving the date of construction. In front of the building before the museum was built, there was a large jirit field (jirit was a kind of polo game much favoured by the pages of the Saray), and Çinili Kö
ş
k seems to have been built as a kind of viewing pavilion. It is in two storeys, almost identical in plan, that is to say, cruciform, with chambers in the corners of the cross. It has a deeply recessed entrance alcove on the main floor, entirely revetted in tiles of various kinds, most of them tile mosaic in turquoise and dark blue. On the back wall these form simple geometric designs, but in the deep soffit of the arch, they display an inscription in an incredibly stylized, one might say geometricized, type of Cufic calligraphy. On the three faces of the vault at the height of the lintel of the door, there is a long double Persian inscription in the beautiful
cuerda seca
technique. The main inscription is in white letters on a dark blue ground. Above and entwined with this is a subordinate inscription in yellow, with the tendrils of a vine meandering in and out between the letters, the whole encased in a frame of deep mauve with flowers of dark blue, turquoise and white. Appropriately, Çinili Kö
ş
k now serves as a museum to exhibit Turkish tiles and ceramics.

The interior consists of a central salon in the shape of an inverted Latin cross with a dome over the crossing. The cross is extended by a vestibule at the entrance end, an apse-like room at the far end, and two eyvans, or open alcoves (now glazed in), at the ends of the shorter arms; additional chambers occupy the corners of the cross. All these rooms were once tiled and many of them still are, with triangular and hexagonal tiles of turquoise and deepest blue, sometimes with superimposed gold designs; these tiles are very similar to those in the Ye
ş
il Cami at Bursa.

Until the present age of nationalism, foreign wares tended to be more highly prized than domestic products. Such appears to have been the case in the Ottoman court as regards the local pottery of Iznik – with the exception of wall tiles. At all events, the exhibition of china in the Çinili Kö
ş
k, though interesting, is far less extensive and varied than several of those in foreign museums and private collections, especially the Victoria and Albert and the unrivalled Godman collection; and most of the present display did not belong to the sultans, but was subsequently acquired by the museum. In the first room, to the left of the entrance vestibule, is a small collection of Selçuk tiles – mostly wall tiles of enamel and majolica ware – of the twelfth to fourteenth centuries. Entering the central salon, one is at once struck by the superb mihrab from the mosque of Ibrahim Bey at Karaman, one of the most splendid works from the height of the great Iznik period. Also in this room are two fine lunette panels in the
cuerda seca
technique from the medrese of Haseki Hiirrem, dated 1539. The second room, to the left, has tiles of the transition period from Selçuk to Ottoman of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, while the third and fourth contain some of the best Iznik ware of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Notice in the third room a charming eighteenth-century baroque fountain, partly tiled and partly painted, set into a niche in the wall. These last two rooms also contain a pair of magnificent kandils, or mosque lamps; they are both from Sokollu Mehmet Pa
ş
a Camii (see Chapter 6) and are therefore to be dated about 1577. The next two rooms contain pottery of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, some of it pretty but Europeanized and lacking in the brilliance and mastery of the earlier work. But in the last one should notice some very charming nineteenth-century plates from Çanakkale, painted with a very restricted palette in a sort of expressionist style with fish, birds, and especially boats.