Museum city: Bursa

Bursa Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art. (Photo: Pat Yale)

The first time I ever visited a Kent Müzesi (City Museum) in Turkey -- as opposed to an archaeological museum with an ethnographic add-on -- it was in Bursa. Since then, City museums have become a boom business with new ones opening all over the country but especially along the Aegean coast.
In the meantime, Bursa has capitalized on having been ahead of the game by opening several more impressive museums. If you're the sort of person who likes nothing more than to while away a few hours admiring the contents of glass cases, then this will be the perfect city for you. And of course when the weather's not of the best there are few better places to take refuge from the cold outdoors than a museum.

Bursa City Museum

Kent Müzesi (City Museum)

First stop on a trip to Bursa -- and ideally on a trip to Turkey -- should be the City Museum, a state-of-the-art affair that gives a quick rundown on the life of the early sultans on the ground floor. If that sounds a little too wordy for you then the basement will offer the instant antidote. Down there you will find installed replicas of the sort of shops that used to grace all of Turkey's towns before the age of the shopping mall. Come here to see what the saddle maker's shop used to look like as well as to watch a short clip of felt makers in action, pounding the wool with their knees in a way that one assumes would be guaranteed to induce arthritis.

Kılıç Kalkan Evi (Sword and Shield House)

Tucked up in Setbaşı within easy walking distance of the town center is this replica Ottoman house, which exists to tell the story of an unexpected local dance form, the kılıç kalkan oyunu (sword and shield dance). Step inside and you will be able to see famous locals who have learnt the dance, including the current vali (governor). The caretaker will be keen to explain everything to you and will invite you to come and watch the dance being performed with much clashing of swords and shields in the town-center square in front of the Koza Hanı every Saturday afternoon. Won't be there on Saturday? Never mind, as you will be able to watch the dancers on video in the museum instead.

TOFAŞ Bursa Anadolu Arabaları Müzesi (TOFAŞ Bursa Museum of Anatolian Carriages)

Even if you've never thought the history of transport would rock your boat it's well worth following the signs from Setbaşı in search of this excellent small museum, housed in a redundant silk-processing factory, which shows off a variety of the sort of old carts that used to be used not just to move people from place to place but also to carry logs and other industrial produce. Like the City Museum, it's a state-of-the-art museum, beautifully presented and with all sorts of information and old photographs to put the exhibits in context. Right at the end it comes right up to date by showing off a few old cars and one brand-new one that has been completely covered in graffiti -- an art exhibit on wheels.

Afterwards it is well worth taking a turn around the lovely grounds, then rounding off your visit with a meal in the stylish Fayton Cafe in the grounds.

 Cuckoo clocks - Bursa Clock Museum

Saat Müzesi (Clock Museum)

Newly opened in the grounds right beside the carriage museum (and accessible on the same admission ticket) is a stunning Clock Museum, housed in what was originally the Umurbey Hamamı (Turkish bath). Once again, the subject matter might seem of very niche interest. However, once you've stepped over the threshold you'll probably be knocked sideways by the quality of the display and by the information provided on the huge variety of forms that time-keeping devices have taken over the years. Best of all must be the room full of cuckoo clocks, an astonishing thing to find in a hamam. If only they could have arranged for them all to work again just imagine what a wonderful sight -- and sound --- it would have made.

Afterwards you should take a quick look at the early 15th-century Umurbey Cami (mosque) to which the hamam once belonged. Its portico incorporates many pieces of old Roman masonry, testifying to how long this part of town has been settled.

Türk ve İslam Eserleri Müzesi (Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts)

For what seemed like forever the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts housed in the medrese (school) of the Yeşil Cami had been closed for restoration, and I doubt that I was the only person who assumed it would never open again. So hoorah that it has actually done so even though the layout of the exhibits inside (mainly the sort of ethnographic bits and bobs that would have been housed upstairs in the Archeology Museum elsewhere) show no sign of having been upgraded to meet modern expectations in terms of display or information. No matter -- the early 15th-century building itself is very fine, with turquoise tiles around most of the windows, which was not something that it had been possible to appreciate for some years either.

Osmanlı Evi (Ottoman House Museum)

The main reason to visit the Muradiye suburb of Bursa is the Muradiye complex from which it takes its name, which has a fine mosque surrounded by the tombs of early Ottoman princes. Ringing the small park in front of the mosque there are, however, a number of other minor attractions, amongst them a restored Ottoman house that is open without much fanfare to the public. It's worth a quick look to admire its open-sided verandahs and lovely painted rooms, although absolutely no information is provided to help you get more out of a visit.

Bursa Arkeoloji Müzesi (Bursa Archeological Museum)

In sharp contrast to the City Museum is the much older and more traditional Archeological Museum, which occupies a lovely location in the Kültür Park off the road to Çekirge but suffers from the same failings as its equals all around Turkey, namely a paucity of hard facts about the exhibits on show, many of them from the days when Bursa was the Roman Prusa ad Olympum. As is so often the case, some of the finest artifacts are the ones on display not inside the building but in the grounds outside.

Karagöz Museum

If you're heading out to the hotels and hamams of the Çekirge suburb your eyes will be drawn to a colorful building on the left-hand side of the road that houses the Karagöz Museum. Karagöz is the Turkish take on shadow puppetry and Bursa lays claim to it as its own, hence this museum, which started life as a private collection before becoming a municipality-run celebration of the leather puppets and the men who made them. It's of rather specialist interest although those with children might find it a godsend. Admission is free, which is always a plus.

Orman Müzesi (Forestry Museum)

If you're stopping to take a look at the Karagöz Museum you might also want to pause at another much-overlooked collection on the same side of the road. The Forestry Museum is once again of rather specialist interest although it does tell the sad story of a bear called Yumak who was orphaned as a cub by hunters, then reared as a pet on Uludağ until the sad day that he injured a child and had to be put to sleep. But the main reason to come here really is to appreciate the fine 19th-century wooden mansion, the Saatçı Köskü, that houses it. Better even than the interior, which boasts some fine painted ceilings and wooden details, is the little summerhouse in the grounds. Although you can't go inside it, you can peer in through the windows to appreciate its own magnificent painted ceiling.

Merinos Tekstil Sanayi Müzesi (Merinos Textile Industry Museum)

Until recently Bursa was home to the huge state-owned Merinos textile factory, which had opened in 1938. In 2004, the factory closed, leaving the buildings redundant. In a sign that Turkey is belatedly catching on to the appeal of industrial-heritage tourism this has now been reopened as a museum that traces the production of textiles right through from the rearing of the sheep that provided the wool to the production of the final items. There is a certain poignancy about a visit, as it's impossible not to notice the way in which sheds that once provided work for up to 17,500 people can now be supervised as visitor attractions by perhaps half a dozen individuals. A new museum celebrating the role of immigration to the story of Bursa was about to open upstairs when I visited.

Afterwards you can stroll in the lovely park that surrounds the museum and appreciate the beauty of the new Merinos Atatürk Conference Center, which opened here in 2009.

Keywords: Bursa , museums

 

Source: http://www.todayszaman.com/travel_museum-city-bursa_365632.html

 

The 10 best castles in Turkey

Mamure Castle (Photo: Pat Yale)

Flick through brochures offering holidays to Turkey and the impression you'll get is of a country perfect for sunbathing, a country where you can float over the azure sea in a graceful wooden yacht, a country dotted with the ruins of countless ancient civilizations.
What you don't very often get, however, is any idea that this is also a country that is littered with the remains of battered castles, castles that bear silent witness to Anatolia's often turbulent past.

Yet, there are parts of Turkey where almost every hilltop is crowned with shattered masonry, often placed there in defiance of any obvious means of reaching it. Castles are always the mainstays of frontier regions and it's no different in Turkey; you'll find the majority of the castles fringing the perimeters of the country, along the Aegean coast, for example, and in its fiercely contested southeastern and northeastern corners.

There are so many ruined castles in Turkey that homing in on just 10 of them is tricky. Everyone will have their own favorite. A word of warning for castle lovers, though: Over the last decade castles have proved particularly susceptible to the sort of slapdash “restoration” that robs them of their precious sense of the past. Two particular victims are the huge castle that crowns the hill above Bayburt and the once-fairytale castle hidden in the forests of Zil, near Çamlıhemşin.

Castle of St. Peter (Museum of Underwater Archaeology)

Pressed to name the very finest castle in Turkey I'd have to plump for the enormous one that looms over the harbor in Bodrum. Not only is this an impressive piece of multi-towered engineering but it has a fascinating story to tell as well, since much of the masonry from which it was built was pilfered from the ruins of the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, the great tomb of the Carian king Mausolus that had been one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

The castle was built in the early 15th century by the Christian Knights Hospitaller, who wanted it to protect their holdings on the nearby island of Rhodes. They continued to reinforce it right up until 1522, when Sultan Süleyman I "the Magnificent" seized both Rhodes and Bodrum and promptly built a mosque inside the castle.

The castle was restored in the 1960s. Since 1986, it has housed a museum of underwater archeology that is one of the finest museums in all of Turkey. Highlights include the remains of the Uluburun, the earliest shipwreck ever excavated -- which is believed to have sunk as long ago as the 14th century B.C. -- and the bones of a Carian princess whose features have been painstakingly reconstructed by experts from Manchester University. The views from the ramparts are simply spectacular.

Rumeli Hisarı

Even if your travels never take you further than İstanbul you can still visit one truly remarkable castle with a particularly venerable history: the “Fortress of Europe” that stands on the shores of the Bosporus in the suburb named after it. Constructed in 1452, Sultan Mehmed II “the Conqueror” used this castle as his base for his successful assault on Constantinople in 1453. It was built at the narrowest point on the strait immediately across from the older “Fortress of Asia” at Anadolu Hisarı, which was constructed in 1394 by his great-grandfather, Sultan Bayezid I, as a base for his own unsuccessful assault on the city. Together the two castles enabled Mehmed to control traffic along the strait and thus prevent food and reinforcements from reaching the besieged Byzantines.

Rumeli Hisarı was restored in 1953 to celebrate the 500th anniversary of Mehmed's achievement. You can take a look around the interior, although there's little in the way of interpretation -- a missed opportunity in terms of telling the story of the siege.

Bozcaada Castle

Just as the Castle of St. Peter dominates Bodrum's harbor, so the magnificent castle at Bozcaada dominates the island's much smaller harbor, greeting visitors as they step ashore after crossing with the ferry. There the comparison ends, however, because you can normally only admire this castle from the outside -- except perhaps on school holidays when the gates may reluctantly swing open.

The story of Bozcaada Castle could be that of virtually any castle in Turkey, with its origins trailing back to early Byzantine times. Later, Venetian and then Genoese traders were permitted to reinforce it, before finally in the 16th century when the Ottomans moved in to make it their own.

Çeşme Castle

Originally built by the Genoese then rebuilt by Sultan Bayezid II in 1508, the castle at Çeşme, beyond İzmir, also faces the harbor, although its erstwhile dominance of its surroundings is not as obvious as in Bodrum or Bozcaada because it is more hemmed in by modern development. This is another castle that has been turned into a museum and as you wander round the ramparts admiring the views you will also be able to take a look at the finds from the archeological site of Erythrae on the Karaburun Peninsula, as well as in an exhibition devoted to the Russo-Turkish War of 1768-1774, during the course of which almost the entire Ottoman fleet was destroyed off the coast of Çeşme.

Mamure Castle

Currently closed for restoration, the massive castle at Mamure is a splendid edifice with 39 towers and a vast moat sitting right on the seashore east of Anamur on the Mediterranean coast. It owes its 13th-century origins to the rulers of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, but the site had probably been fortified since Roman times. In 1308, it was seized by Mehmet I of Karaman, who stamped his mark on the building by adding a mosque to it.

Kızkalesi

Visitors to the seaside resort of Kızkalesi, near Silifke on the Mediterranean coast, can have the pleasure of sunbathing in the shadow of one enormous castle while gazing out over the sea to another smaller one, Maiden's Castle. Maiden's Castle gave its name to the town and stands in splendid isolation on an offshore island. Originally, the two castles were linked by a causeway, parts of which still survive underwater.

The Kızkalesi castles were originally the handiwork of Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos, who had them built in the late 11th century as protection against the Crusaders. Needless to say, there's a fanciful story about a princess marooned on the castle on the island for her own protection, who is nonetheless killed by a bite from a snake delivered in a basket of fruit. Sound familiar? It's the same story told about Kızkulesi (Maiden's Tower) in İstanbul.

Yılankale

Heading north and east from Adana, you move into what might well be branded "Castle Country," with every hilltop bristling with fortifications. Right beside the main highway from Adana to Osmaniye, you'll see the impressive remains of Toprakkale (Earth Castle), which dates back to the 13th century. Unfortunately, the main road makes it hard to access this castle. Luckily the almost identical Yılankale (Snake Castle), just off the road to Kadırlı, is much easier to get to with a road running right up to the castle. Surprise, surprise -- it's currently closed for restoration.

Kozan

Northeast of Adana, the forgotten town of Kozan was once Sis, the capital of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia. Here the rulers built a castle so high up on a craggy rock that it's almost impossible to imagine how one is to get up to it -- let alone how it could ever have been built there. Fortunately, a new road runs right up to the foot of the castle. To be honest, there's not a great deal to see inside and climbing around in the ruins is potentially dangerous so you might want to save yourself the effort and just admire it in awe-struck wonder from a distance.

Gaziantep

These days Gaziantep may be best known for the wonderful mosaics in the Zeugma Museum -- and for its baklava, of course -- but it also boasts another treasure in the shape of its magnificent castle, a cut-down version of the one in Aleppo that stands on an artificial mound immediately behind the old bazaar. The site is believed to have been fortified since Roman times, with the Byzantine Emperor Justinian rebuilding a castle on the site. The Seljuks are thought to have constructed the current version with its monumental walls. Theoretically, you can go inside to visit the Panorama Museum, which celebrates the city's fight against French occupation in 1920. Unfortunately, the drawbridge into the castle collapsed last year, so it's currently closed for restoration.

Şebinkarahisar

These days many people visit Antep and admire its imposing castle. The same can hardly be said of Şebinkarahisar, a forgotten small town inland from Giresun on the Black Sea where an enormous castle with walls almost 1,000 meters long straggles along a plateau high above the houses. By now, you won't be surprised to learn that it owes its genesis to Emperor Justinian; its ruinous condition is largely due to an earthquake of 1939. The castle was probably given its name -- which means Alum Black Castle -- to distinguish it from Opium Black Castle (Afyonkarahisar) way over to the west.

Also worth visiting: Hoşap Kalesi, Afyonkarahisar, Silifke Kalesi, Softa Kalesi, Ardanuç Kalesi.

Keywords: castles , Turkey

 

source:http://www.todayszaman.com/travel_the-10-best-castles-in-turkey_352740.html 

Seeking Egypt in İstanbul -- a forgotten heritage

Emirgan Korusu (Photo: Sunday's Zaman, Mustafa Kirazlı)

Diplomatic relations between Turkey and Egypt may be at a low point right now but there was a time in the late 19th and early 20th centuries when the effective rulers of Egypt felt so at home in the heart of the Ottoman Empire that they decorated what was then Constantinople (now Istanbul) with many fine buildings, some of which still survive today.
Egypt first became part of the expanding Ottoman Empire in 1517 when it was captured by Sultan Selim I. Sheer distance from the capital meant, however, that it always held on to a degree of autonomy. Then, in 1787, Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Egypt. Amongst the troops sent to drive him out again was one Mehmed Ali Paşa (1770-1849), the son of a merchant from Kavala in what is now Thracian Greece, hence the epithet “Kavalalı" by which his dynasty came to be known. By 1841, Mehmed Ali Paşa had made such a mark on Egypt that Sultan Abdülaziz agreed that his descendants should continue to rule it as governors.

It was not always an easy relationship since Mehmed Ali sometimes attempted to expand his sphere of influence, at one point marching an army right into the heart of Anatolia. On the other hand, he was a keen believer in all things Ottoman and did a lot to Turkify Egyptian culture, which had until then remained strongly Mamluk in feel. At the same time, some of his descendants took a particular shine to Constantinople, regularly abandoning the heat of the Nile Valley in summer for the relative cool of their homes on the shores of the Bosporus.

Kavalalı Mehmed Ali Paşa was succeeded by his grandson, Abbas Hilmi Paşa, who governed until 1854, and then by his son, Said Paşa, who ruled until 1863. Said Paşa's son, İsmail Paşa, increased the power of the dynasty until it became semi-independent; in 1867 he was given the title of khedive, which was most readily translated into English as viceroy. The high point of İsmail's period in power came in 1869 with the opening of the Suez Canal, but by then Egypt was virtually bankrupt, and in 1879, he was forced to abdicate in favor of his son, Tevfik Paşa. Things in Egypt went from bad to worse and from 1882 onwards the British became its effective rulers despite its continued theoretical subordination to the sultan via the khedive.

In 1892, Tevfik Paşa was succeeded as khedive by his son, Abbas Hilmi Paşa, who traveled to Constantinople to be invested as khedive by Sultan Abdülhamid II. In 1914, he was replaced in office by his uncle, Hüseyin Kamil Paşa, but from then onwards Egypt was completely under the control of the British, the 500-year-old link with Constantinople finally severed.

Dotted about İstanbul there are many reminders of the interlinked history of Egypt and the Ottoman Empire. The full story is told in “From the Shores of the Nile to the Bosphorus,” published by the İstanbul Research Institute.

Sakıp Sabancı Museum (Atlı Köşkü, Prenses İffet Hasan Köşkü)

Visitors to the Sakıp Sabancı Museum at Emirgan will find themselves unwittingly walking around a building that was commissioned by a member of the Kavalalı dynasty in the shape of Prince Mehmed Ali Hasan, who commissioned Italian architect Eduardo de Nari to build a new house on the site of his childhood home in 1925. The prince never got to live in it himself but instead allowed his party-loving aunt, Princess İffet Hasan, to move in. In 1951, the mansion was sold to Ömer Sabancı and was eventually converted into a museum.

Khedive's Villa (Hidiv Kasrı)

If you stand on the terrace of Sakıp Sabancı Museum and gaze across the Bosphorus you will see, rising out of the last remaining stretches of woodland, a tall, square tower. This is attached to the gorgeous Khedive's Villa, built for Abbas Hilmi Paşa in 1907 to replace an earlier palace (now lost) on the shores of the Bosporus at Çubuklu. A magnificent example of Neo-Renaissance-style architecture on the outside and Art Nouveau on the inside, it was designed by an architect whose name is uncertain. The most probable scenario is that Italian architect Delfo Seminati designed the annexes while Italian architect Antonio Lasciac was responsible for the main building.

Now converted into a restaurant in lovely grounds that are at their best during the Tulip Festival in late April, the villa still boasts Art Nouveau tiles in the bathrooms, wonderful marquetry and splendid metalwork.

Egyptian Consulate (Valide Paşa Yalı, Hıdiva Sarayı)

Right beside the Bosporus at Bebek and visible from the Khedive's Villa is a huge mansion that had been built five years earlier for Abbas Hilmi's mother, Emine Hanım. Recently completely restored, it is İstanbul's finest example of Art Nouveau architecture, so it's a shame that its use as a consulate means that few people get to see the interior. You can, however, admire the typically curvaceous windows set into turrets from the road outside. Once again, its buildership is disputed with Raimondo d'Aronco and Antonio Lasciac in the frontline as probable but not certain architects.

Egyptian Apartment Block (Mısır Apartmanı)

Passed daily by thousands of visitors is a 19th-century mansion block on İstiklal Street, Mısır Apartmanı, that houses a super-trendy restaurant called 360, as well as many small art galleries. When Abbas Hilmi Paşa visited Constantinople in the winter, it was to this mansion -- designed in 1910 by Armenian architect Hovsep Aznavuryan -- which he would retreat. After his death it was divided into separate apartments but remained a very popular piece of real estate, home at different times to Mehmet Akif Ersoy, the man behind the Turkish national anthem; Hollywood actress Virginia Bruce, who was married to a Turk; and Atatürk's dentist.

Said Halim Paşa Yalısı (Aslan Yalı)

Beside the Bosporus at Yeniköy stands a fine reconstructed yalı (waterside mansion) designed by Petraki Adamanti in 1878 for Abdülhalim Paşa, a son of Mehmed Ali Paşa. It eventually became home to his own son, Said Halim Paşa (1864-1921), who served as grand vizier from 1913 to 1917 and was therefore partly responsible for the decision to take the Ottoman Empire into World War I on the German side. The yalı now serves as an upscale wedding and entertainments venue.

Emirgan Korusu (Emirgan Woods)

Sultan Abdülaziz had a love-hate relationship with İsmail Paşa, but eventually allowed him to end his exile from Egypt in Emirgan, where he constructed several waterside mansions, all since lost. Instead, we have the khedive to thank for the three pavilions -- Pembe (Pink), Beyaz (White) and Sarı (Yellow) Köşkleri -- that survive as café-restaurants in the woods just inland. All have been extensively restored or rebuilt.

Heybeliada

The most prominent of the Egyptian rulers may have hankered after homes on the shores of the Bosporus (and may also have been responsible for many of the moonlight parties held on the water) but some of them also took a liking to Heybeliada, the second largest of the Princes' Islands. It was here between 1897 and 1899 that Aznavuryan designed the most overtly Egyptian of all the buildings paid for by the Kavalalı dynasty in the shape of Abbas Halim Paşa Köşkleri, a group of three separate structures in Egyptian Revival style that featured pylons modeled on those of Ancient Egypt and lotus-headed capitals. Sadly, the selamlık (area designated for men) was demolished in 1945, leaving only the gateposts adorned with lotuses that face onto Abbas Paşa Street. The wooden haremlik (area designated for women) and servants' quarters still survive in private hands, although they were designed in style that is more prosaic.

In 1911, Abbas Hilmi Paşa also paid for the renovation of the gate leading into the island's Muslim Cemetery. It still stands today, although there is nothing specifically Egyptian about the design.

Zeynep Kamıl Hastanesi (Zeynep Kamıl Hospital)

In Üsküdar, the hospital that still bears the name of the couple who founded it as the city's first private charitable institution is yet another reminder of the Kavalalı dynasty. Zeynep Hanım (1826-84) was a daughter of Mehmed Ali Paşa and married Yusuf Kamıl Paşa, who was briefly grand vizier to Sultan Abdülaziz in 1863. Together they founded the hospital in 1862, although it wasn't completed until 1882; their mausoleum can still be seen in the grounds today.

Also linked to the Kavalalı dynasty: Üsküdar Fenai Ali Efendi Tekke; Yenikapı Mevlevihanesi; Aksaray Oğlanlar Tekke; Beykoz Kasrı; Prenses Rukiye Halim Yalısı, Kanlıça; and the ruins of Büyük Halim Paşa Yalı (Süngerli Köşk), Baltalimanı.

Losses include Abbas Halim Paşa Köşkü at Yakacık, burnt down in 1993; Mustafa Fazıl Paşa Köşkü, demolished in 1942; Zeynep Kamıl Konağı, Beyazıt, burnt down in 1942; Prenses İffet Hasan Konaği, Gümüşsuyu, demolished after 1944; Büyük Halim Paşa Yalı (Zeynep Kamil Hanım Yalı), demolished in 1928; Hıdiv İsmail Paşa Yalı, Emirgan, demolished in 1927; and İbrahim Paşa Yalı, Emirgan, demolished.

Keywords: Egypt , Istanbul

 

Source: http://www.todayszaman.com/travel_seeking-egypt-in-istanbul-a-forgotten-heritage_366144.html 

How the Germans left their mark on İstanbul

(Photo: Today's Zaman, Mühenna Kahveci)

Strolling through the Hippodrome (Atmeydanı) in Sultanahmet visitors usually pass a large circular fountain near the tomb of Sultan Ahmed I. It's not an especially beautiful structure -- nothing in comparison with the gorgeous Ahmed III Fountain that stands in front of the entrance to Topkapı Palace, for example. Still, its design is something of a novelty for the city and behind it lies a story of Ottoman-Turkish friendship that laid the foundations for the path that eventually led Turkey to enter World War I on the side of the Germans.

If you gaze up at the fountain's ceiling you will see a pair of monograms set into a mosaic of golden tesserae designed to evoke the grandeur of the lost Byzantine past. One is that of Sultan Abdülhamid II, the paranoid monarch who reigned over the Ottoman Empire from 1876 to 1909, the other that of Kaiser Wilhelm II, the ruler of Germany from 1888 to 1918 who made two state visits to Istanbul, then still Constantinople, in 1889 and 1898. Designed by Prussian architect Max Spitta, the Alman Çeşmesi (German Fountain) was paid for by the Germans to commemorate the second of these visits. The emperor himself is believed to have designed it.

Alman Çesmesi, Hippodrome (Photo: Pat Yale)

Details of on Alman Çesmesi (Photo: Pat Yale)

At the time of his first visit Wilhelm had only been the German ruler for a year. However, his visit was part of what had become a gentle push by Germany to replace itself as the Ottoman Empire's number one ally in place of Britain. Already that effort had shown itself in the arrival in Constantinople of General von der Goltz, who was tasked with modernizing the Ottoman army. It had also shown itself in the German enthusiasm for building a new railway that was intended to stretch all the way from Berlin to Baghdad. But it was the visits of Kaiser Wilhelm that left the strongest mark on the city's architecture, not least because the sultan had part of the Yıldız Palace completely remodeled to house his important guest.

Aside from the fountain, these are some of the buildings still to be seen in İstanbul that serve a reminder of the ties between Turkey and Germany. A painting by court artist Fausto Zonaro (1854-1929) showing the kaiser and his wife, Augusta Victoria, arriving by caique at Dolmabahçe Palace can also be seen inside it.

Yıldız Palace

The least known of İstanbul's many Ottoman stately homes, Yıldız Palace lurks at the back of a large park overlooking the Bosporus and owes its entire existence to Sultan Abdülhamid II who lived in fear of assassination. This fear led him to create a new palace made up of many different buildings that today are almost impossible to visit on a single trip because of the way in which they were separated from each other to make it harder for an assailant to get around.

Most people settle for a visit to the so-called Şale (Chalet) that can be accessed directly from the park. A long, graceful, two-storied structure with frilly wooden decoration running round the gables, the chalet was designed in the 1870s to serve as a guesthouse separated from the sultan's own living area by a high wall. When it became apparent that the kaiser would make a state visit it was given a speedy upgrade by Sarkis Balyan, a task repeated by Raimondo d'Aronco when he returned for his second visit in 1898.

Visitors to the chalet get to see the huge reception room as well as the dining room in which the kaiser dined from golden plates and quaffed wine from gem-encrusted goblets. It's all decorated in the rather overblown baroque style then in vogue as the sultans tried to westernize the empire but it's hard not to be impressed by the largest Hereke carpet ever woven which adorns the reception room.

Haydarpaşa Station

Probably the best known of all İstanbul's German monuments is Haydarpaşa Station, which can be admired by anyone who takes the ferry across the Bosphorus from Eminönü or Karaköy to Kadıköy. Built in 1906 to a design drawn up by the German architects Otto Ritter and Helmut Cuno, it's a little piece of Germany dropped from northern Europe on the doorstep of Asia where it served until recently as the first point in every railway journey east into the heart of Anatolia and beyond.

The station stands as an everyday memorial to the monumental effort involved in building a railway line all the way from Berlin to Baghdad, a task officially commenced in 1903 but not completed until 1940. The story of that railway line is one of complex diplomatic and financial sparring in which the oil reserves of Mesopotamia feature prominently. It's also a story in which a German engineering genius named Wilhelm von Pressel (1821-1902) played a leading role. In that sense it's a particular shame that the upgrading of Turkey's railway infrastructure via the Marmaray and the new high-speed train network looks likely to render Haydarpaşa Station redundant.

Originally built on reclaimed land so that it is surrounded by water on three sides, it will probably reemerge as a luxury hotel (if not a shopping mall) although one must hope that a small museum detailing the story of the railway might be shoehorned into the plans. Failing that, Sean McMeekin's book, “The Berlin-Baghdad Express: The Ottoman Empire and Germany's Bid For World Power, 1898-1918,” tells the full story.

Deutsche Bank

In the back streets of Sirkeci the austere building that once housed the Deutsche Bank (formally the Basmadcıyan Han) was designed in 1890 by Prussian architect August Jasmund, the man behind Sirkeci Station. It was the Deutsche Bank that provided much of the initial funding for the Berlin to Baghdad railway. For the time being the building stands empty but a new use for it cannot be far away.

The building in Sirkeci was originally a sub-branch of the bank, the main branch being in what is now the Sümerbank building on Karaköy's Voyvoda Caddesi, colloquially known as Bankalar Caddesi (Bank Street) because it was home to so many banks. This building, erected in the 1880s, was also home to the company that operated the Anatolia Railway, another project part-funded by the bank

German Consulate

Visitors ambling down Gümüssuyu Caddesi from Taksim Square will see on the right-hand side of the road the impressively large building, erected between 1874 and 1877, that houses the German Consulate. During his visits the kaiser is known to have visited what was then the German Embassy. Today it's usually conspicuous mainly for the queues of eager visa-seekers standing in line beside the side entrance.

German Embassy summer residence

In the days before Mustafa Kemal Atatürk moved the Turkish capital to Ankara and the İstanbul embassies were all downgraded to consulates many of the wealthier nations also maintained summer embassies on the upper reaches of the Bosporus to which their staff could retreat in the sweltering summer months. The German summer residence occupied a house in Tarabya with a large garden that had been given to the kaiser by Sultan Abdülhamid II as a thank-you for his help in reforming the Ottoman navy. In the grounds a memorial commemorates earlier help given by Marshall Helmuth von Moltke to Sultan Mahmud II when he was trying to remodel the army. An imposing whitewashed yalı with a small turret, the building still survives today although it's not open to the public.

Teutonia German Club

Another monument with a colorful German history behind it is No. 65 Galipdede Caddesi, just downhill from Tünel. Originally built in 1847 to serve as a clubhouse for Germans and rebuilt in 1897, it went on to become a center for the dissemination of Nazi propaganda before World War II.

Kaiser Wilhelm's guesthouse, Hereke

As if it wasn't enough to have lavished money on upgrading the Yıldız Palace guesthouse for the kaiser, in 1898 Sultan Abdülhamid also had a pretty little pavilion purpose-built for him on the Sea of Marmara near the factory that produced the famous Hereke silk carpets. The kaiser had taken a particular interest in these carpets, bringing with him from Germany new color-fast dyes that could be used to improve them as well as a microscope that made it possible for the weavers to keep an eye out for parasites.

Newly restored, the guesthouse, now called Çivisiz Köskü to commemorate the fact that it was originally built without the use of nails, is once again open to visitors as is the nearby factory.

Keywords: Germans , Istanbul

Gülhane: A park for all seasons

View from Setüstü Çay Bahçesi (Photo: Pat Yale)

High up above the point where the Sea of Marmara meets the Bosporus and the Golden Horn, enthusiastic tea drinkers sit around samovars on tables lined up to catch a magnificent view that was once the preserve of the sultans. This is Setüstü Çay Bahçesi (Top Terrace Tea Garden), a corner of Istanbul's wonderful gülhane Park that goes remarkably unvisited except by the locals.

Over the last 18 months, much has been said about the lack of green spaces in İstanbul. Statistics have been rolled out to make the case. Yet Gülhane Park rarely gets a mention despite the fact that it is nestled right in the heart of busy Sultanahmet, the throbbing heart of the city's tourism industry.

The reason for the park's relative anonymity isn't hard to find. It started life as the outer garden of Topkapı Palace, which meant that high walls had to shield it from the gaze of plebeian passers-by. Even today there are only a few gaps in those walls, so many visitors rush past without thinking to glance behind them. Yet, for my money, an hour or so spent wandering around the park can be one of the most rewarding, inspirational experiences of a trip to İstanbul.

Gülhane is a true park for all seasons. While it's true that it peaks early when the tulips bloom during the April Tulip Festival, their passing is soon forgiven when roses flower in the marble-lined flowerbeds at the back of the park. In autumn, when the leaves start to fall, the park takes on an air of melancholic grandeur. Even in winter this is a great place to come to stroll between the ghostly white trunks of the trees marching along both sides of the main path and to observe the frantic activity in the centuries-old heronry filling the canopy.

The park is a place to come to relax and listen to parakeets that screech across the sky. It's a place to bring children to play in surprisingly imaginative play areas. And it's a place to admire temporary art pieces that pop up from time to time.

Those tourists who do drop into the park often do no more than stroll up and down the main thoroughfare. But the park keeps its cards close to its chest. To discover all that it has to offer you need to get away from that magnetic main path. Do that and you'll discover two small museums, two minor historic monuments and even a statue with a history behind it.

Alay Köşkü (Parade Pavilion)

The nicest way to get to the park is to stroll down Söğütçeşme Sokağı, a cobbled street of pastel-colored houses that runs between the walls of Topkapı Palace and the back of the Hagia Sophia. The second nicest way is to wander downhill from the first courtyard of the palace, passing the İstanbul Archeological Museum. In either case, you'll find yourself at the congested main entrance to the park where hawkers gather to sell corn on the cob and cotton candy to visitors.

Once you've passed the barrier leading into the park you should turn sharp left and mount the ramp that runs alongside the wall. This leads up to what is now the Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar Edeyibat Müze Kütüphanesi, a small literature museum and library (closed at ???ON??? weekends) named after Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar (1901-62), one of Turkey's most revered writers, whose “The Time Regulation Institute” was recently published in English.

Long before it became a library, this little gazebo built right onto the walls was the Parade Pavilion, from which the sultans could watch the city's many festivities, including the colorful Procession of the Gilds, memorably described by 17th-century Ottoman traveler Evliya Çelebi. Çelebi writes, for example, of the furriers parading with “the furs of sable, ermine, marten, red squirrel and Russian silver fox… the neck furs of duck, swan and goldfinch… and the furs of astrakhan lambskin, all worth hundreds of thousands of kuruş [Ottoman currency].” It's likely that the original was built for Sultan Mehmed II, the Conqueror of Constantinople, although the current model dates back only to 1819, when the reforming Mahmud II was sultan.

Even if you're not much interested in Turkish literature, it's worth coming up here to get a sultan's-eye view through the windows at the enormous roofed gateway on the other side of the tramlines. This was the Sublime Porte, where visitors hoping to see the grand vizier would wait to be received with the result that ambassadors came to be described as accredited to the Sublime Porte rather than to the Palace. The current gateway dates back to circa 1840.

Museum of the History of Islamic Science and Technology

If you leave the library and continue walking around the park wall in a clockwise direction, you will pass a small lake with a bridge -- which makes a popular posing platform -- and then an electricity box decorated with some of the typically swirling miniatures that were the hallmark of the late Nusret Cölpan (1952-2008).

Eventually you will arrive at the Museum of the History of Islamic Science and Technology (closed Tuesdays), which is housed in what was originally a stable block. The subject matter might sound of rather specialist interest, but the museum is worth visiting not least for its beautiful presentation. Come here, too, to learn the history of the İstanbul Rasathane, the observatory that today plays a big role in earthquake preparation. It was originally the handiwork of a Syrian called Takiyüddin (1526-85), who founded the first such space in Tophane in 1574 before being obliged by the religious authorities to move on.

Goths Column

If you cross the park and head uphill towards the Setüstü Çay Bahçesi, you should come to a clearing with, in the center of it, one of the city's four remaining Roman memorial columns. An inscription on the base of the column refers to a victory over the Goths without indicating which one, leading historians to postulate that it could have been erected during the reign of Claudius II Gothicus (r. 268-70) or Constantine the Great (r. 306-37). One historian recorded that it had been topped with a statue of Byzas, the founder of Byzantium, which would make perfect sense given that the Topkapı Palace was built over the site of the original Byzantine one.

Byzantine church

If not much can be said with any conviction about the Goths Column, even less can be said about a cluster of unexcavated ruins that you'll find if you head back down towards the main path through the park. Broken columns, tumbled capitals and heaped-up stones might suggest that this was the site of a small Byzantine church, perhaps dating back to the reign of Constantine. How odd that it should sit there virtually ignored.

First statue of Atatürk

After pausing for tea at Setüstü, it's worth following the perimeter of the park counterclockwise and downhill to the exit on the Bosporus side at Sarayburnu (Seraglio Point). Here amid a great deal of building paraphernalia stands the very first statue ever built of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. It was erected in 1926, three years after the founding of the Turkish Republic. There he stands gazing across the water towards Kadıköy and the site of the original settlement of Chalcedon, founded by the Megarans in circa 635 B.C. Given that Islamic tradition frowned on representation of living things, the statue was the work of Austrian sculptor Heinrich Krippel.

Çinili Köşkü (Tiled Pavilion)

If, instead, you leave Setüstü and continue to follow the walls of the park in a clockwise direction, you will find yourself passing behind the elegant Çinili Köşkü, built in 1472 for Sultan Mehmed II, probably so that he could watch bouts of cirit, a Turkish sport not entirely unlike polo. While not nearly as lovely as the front, which offers access to a part of the Archeological Museum, the back of the building is nevertheless studded with beautiful turquoise tiles that reek of Central Asia.

The main entrance to the park faces the Zeynep Sultan Cami on Alemdar Caddesi. It's open daily from dawn to dusk.

Keywords: gülhane , Istanbul

 

source:http://www.todayszaman.com/travel_gulhane-a-park-for-all-seasons_353902.html 

Turkey’s 12 best mosques

Sultanahmet Camii (Photo: Sunday's Zaman)

A mosque is a mosque is a mosque, right?
Wrong! You could perhaps be forgiven for thinking in this way while traveling around Turkey, where too many modern mosques are mere cut-price, cut-down copycats of the great Mimar Sinan originals. In reality, though, Turkey is home to a huge variety of mosques, many of them truly splendid. The following are some of the country's finest mosques but have also been chosen as representatives of different styles.

Ulu Cami, Diyarbakır

Dating back to 639 and the period when the newly invigorated Arabs were pouring north from what is now Saudi Arabia, Ulu Cami in far eastern Diyarbakır is believed to be the oldest mosque in Anatolia. With its elongated courtyard surrounded by the mosque itself and several porticoes, its design has more in common with those of Aleppo and Damascus than it does with later Turkish designs. The mosque has gone through many re-buildings over the centuries and is now undergoing meticulous restoration.

Alaaddin Cami, Konya

The most familiar Turkish mosque design features cascading domes and semi-domes framed by minarets but many of the oldest mosques in the country have a much less showy appearance. As with their caravanserais, the Selçuks tended to focus all their decorative efforts on the portals of their mosques and on the mihrabs inside which usually sat amid a sea of columns, often utilizing pieces of Roman masonry as capitals and bases. Alaaddin Cami in Konya, the original Selçuk capital, boasts an unusually elaborate exterior although its interior is fairly typical, Buried in the courtyard behind it are some of the Selçuk rulers.

Ulu Cami, Divriği

After the Selçuk Sultanate of Rum (Konya) collapsed many different emirates (beyliks) developed in Anatolia. Remote Divriği became the capital of the Mengücek Beylik, one of whose rulers, Ahmed Şah, commissioned an Ulu Cami of such splendor in 1228 that it is now one of Turkey's world heritage sites. What makes his Ulu Cami so special is the Cennet Kapısı (Heaven Gate) that took the usual Selçuk emphasis on portals to such wildly elaborate extremes that it is often described as Rococo in appearance. There's nothing else quite like it in Turkey although a copy has been added to a modern mosque at Bulancak, near Giresun on the Black Sea.

İsa Bey Cami, Selçuk

Tourists who choose to visit the ruins of Ephesus from Selçuk rather than Kuşadası also get the opportunity to appreciate another masterpiece of the Beylik period: the huge and lovely İsa Bey Cami, built in 1375. Despite its position on the far western side of Turkey, this mosque bears some comparison with the Ulu Cami in Diyarbakır, having a large courtyard in which the congregation once prayed out of doors. In general, the mosque is seen as an example of the transition from Selçuk to Ottoman architecture, with the elaborate decoration of the portal harking back to the Selçuks while the twin domes presaged the early Ottomans.

Eşrefoğlu Cami, Beyşehir

On the shores of Lake Beyşehir, the Eşrefoğlu Cami is another masterpiece of the Beylik era that belongs to a distinct subset of “Selçuk” mosques known as “forest mosques” because the great sea of columns inside was created from wood rather than stone. Built in 1299, this mosque features not just 42 lovely wooden columns but also an array of other painted wooden fittings including the mimber and seating boxes for the muezzin and the emir himself. Right in the middle, a square is fenced off with wooden balustrades. Once upon a time, it would have been open to the skies although it's now roofed over.

Other forest mosques include the Ulu Cami in Afyon, and the Arslanhane and Ahi Elvan Camis in the Samanpazarı area of Ankara.

Hüdavendigar Cami, Bursa

When the Ottomans started to take over Anatolia the mosques they designed were far simpler than those that were to come later. Many fine examples can be seen in Bursa, the first Ottoman capital, where a ground plan based on an inverted T developed, with the mihrab up a few steps in the narrowest part of the mosque. Featuring brick-and-stone exteriors, the mosques often look almost Byzantine. With its many domes built onto a flat roof, Bursa's Ulu Cami is the least typical mosque in town. More characteristic is the iconic Yeşil Cami with its fine tiled interior. Tucked away in the Çekirge suburb, the Hüdavendigar Cami, built for Sultan Murad I between 1363 and 1366, is another impressive one-off, its exterior so designed that it looks almost like a Byzantine palace rather than a mosque. Inside, it reverts to the typical T-bar design. It's a shame that more people don't visit it.

Küçük Ayasofya, İstanbul

After the Ottomans seized Constantinople from the Byzantines in 1453 they had to improvise places of worship from existing buildings, which meant quickly converting all the Byzantine churches into mosques. These church-mosques included both Hagia Sophia (Ayasofya) and the Chora Church (Kariye Cami). Both are now museums but other church-mosques continue as places of worship even today. One particularly lovely example is Küçük Ayasofya, which started life in 527 as the Church of Sts. Sergius and Bacchus. Externally it's not especially striking but step inside and you'll find a two-story ring of marble columns etched with fine carvings and a lengthy inscription. It's a splendid one-off.

Süleymaniye Cami, Istanbul

Of all Turkey's architects none has the name recognition of the great Sinan (c. 1490-1588). Today more than 80 of the buildings he designed for İstanbul still survive, including medreses, hamams and bridges. But his many mosques have left the greatest mark on the city, and of those mosques is the recently restored Süleymaniye, the great mosque that he built for Süleyman the Magnificent. It bestrides the skyline, which is the most impressive, not least because almost all of its original külliye, the collection of social buildings surrounding it, survives.
Süleymaniye is huge, splendid and crowded, and some visitors prefer the much smaller Rüstem Paşa Cami that hunkers down near the Galata Bridge, its walls papered with lovely İznik tiles on the inside and out. There are more fine tiles in the Sokollu Mehmed Paşa Cami in Kadırga but my own personal favorite Sinan mosque is Şehzade Cami, the first large mosque complex he designed.
Selimiye Cami, Edirne

Much as Süleymaniye is admired, Sinan himself rated Selimiye Cami, which he built for Sultan Selim II in Edirne between 1569 and 1575, as his masterpiece, a decision confirmed by UNESCO when it awarded the mosque world-heritage-site status in 2011. Set at the back of a small park that makes it easy to appreciate it, Selimiye incorporates all the familiar Sinan characteristics -- a central dome covering a huge central prayer hall with a collection of smaller domes and semi-domes surrounding it and four tall, thin minarets framing it.

Sultanahmet Cami (Blue Mosque)

Designed by a pupil of Sinan, Sedefkar Mehmet Ağa, between 1609 and 1616, Sultanahmet Cami is as grand as, and similar in design to, Süleymaniye, and features an unrivalled selection of İznik tiles. But where Sultan Süleyman had been happy to settle for four minarets, Sultan Ahmed I wanted an even more impressive six. For that alone, Sultanahmet Cami stands out. It wasn't until Merkez Sabancı Cami arose in Adana in 1998 that a second mosque in Turkey also opted for six mosques.

Ortaköy Cami, İstanbul

Most commentators think that Turkish mosque architecture went into a slow decline from the end of the 17th century onwards. In the latter half of the 19th century, however, the prolific Balyan family of architects bestowed a distinctive set of mosques on İstanbul, especially on the shores of the Bosporus. Typical of these mosques is Büyük Mecidiye in Ortaköy, built in 1855 and now sitting just beneath the Bosporus Bridge. Whereas the windows of Sinan mosques tended to be relatively small and were often filled with stained glass, this mosque has huge, arched windows designed to draw in light from the outside. By this time, the baggage of the social buildings once associated with mosques had been shed along with the cascading domes and semi-domes. Instead, Ortaköy Cami features a single large dome along with two minarets. Dolmabahçe Cami is more or less a mirror image of it.

Şakirin Cami, İstanbul

Modernity has not been kind to İstanbul mosque design, little of which rises above mediocrity. A striking exception is Şakirin Cami on the edge of the Karacaahmet cemetery between Üsküdar and Kadıköy. Completed in 2011, this mosque nods towards the style of Frank Gehry on the outside. On the inside, however, it's unique. The work of a female interior designer, Zeynep Fadıllıoğlu, it features a magnificent turquoise and golden mihrab together with beautiful gold-leaf calligraphy and dripping plastic chandeliers. It's well worth going out of your way to see.

Keywords: Turkey , best , mosques

 

Source: http://www.todayszaman.com/travel_turkeys-12-best-mosques_367427.html

 

Istanbul’s museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts revisited

Knitted Column & Sultanahmet Cami from Turkish & Islamic Arts Museum

 

 

Great news! After two years of restoration the Turkish and Islamic arts museum in Istanbul's Hippodrome has finally reopened just in time for the festive season.
The museum is housed inside a stone building that is itself a historic monument as the only privately owned mansion to have survived from the 16th-century heyday of the Ottoman Empire. When it was built is a mystery, although it has to have been long enough before 1520 to have needed the running repairs of that year for which records survive. What is certainly known is that in 1521 Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent made a gift of the building to his friend and later son-in-law, İbrahim Paşa, who became one of his grand viziers. Subsequently, in 1530 the sultan observed the celebrations for the circumcisions of his three sons from the window that jutted out onto the Hippodrome.

Being an Ottoman sultan's favorite was just as precarious a business as being a favorite at the court of the Tudor kings of England, and in 1536 İbrahim fell foul of Şuleyman's powerful wife Roxelana in a dispute over the succession; at a feast to celebrate Ramadan he was duly strangled and his body tossed into the Bosporus.

After that the palace had a checkered history. The building you see today is a mere fragment of the original which is believed to have stretched right the way along the Hippodrome as far as the Firuz Ağa Cami (mosque) on Divan Yolu and as far back as the Binbirdirek Sarnıçı (1001 Pillars Cistern). Fortunately, the main ceremonial hall survived and had been restored to what was thought to be its original appearance by 1983 after which the museum was moved here from its previous home in one of the medreses attached to the Süleymaniye Cami.

The museum

Today the museum is home to a stunning collection of items not just from Turkey but also from other parts of the Islamic world. They are displayed in roughly chronological order, starting with capitals, floor tiles and other items acquired from the palace of the Abbasid ruler Caliph Mutasim (r. 833-42) in Samarra (modern-day Iraq), and a collection of early medieval glazed turquoise pottery redisplayed as if it had just been excavated from the ruins of Raqqa, a poignant sight now that the modern city has fallen to the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

New to the museum is a room devoted to the Damascus documents collection, a treasure trove of pages taken from Qurans dating from the ninth to the 19th centuries that were brought here from the Ummayad Mosque in Damascus in 1917.

A highlight of the museum is the early 13th-century door taken from the Ulu Cami in distant Cizre. This magnificent door with two wings featured a wooden frame over which an elaborately worked metal superstructure was placed. It also featured a huge pair of griffin-shaped door knockers attached to it with knobs shaped like lions' heads. Sadly, one of these knockers was stolen in 1966 and is now in the David Collection in Copenhagen, a clear example, surely, of something that should be returned to its land of origin. Unusually, we know the name of the man who designed this wonderful door, a Cizre-born engineer named Al-Jazari (1136-1206) who worked at the court of the Artuqid Sultan Nureddin Muhammed Kara Aslan and wrote a book, nicknamed Automata, in which he described his many ingenious inventions.
The museum also displays beautiful items from Safavid and Qajar Iran including mirrors that show off the Qajar rulers with astonishingly thick black beards so that they look rather like negatives of Santa Claus. Then come the purely Turkish rooms, displaying choice pieces from the Seljuq, Beylik and Ottoman eras. Some of the most interesting are the Seljuq items that show how lightly the Islamic prohibition on figurative art was once held. Here you'll see bowls painted not just with birds but also with groups of Seljuq grandees as well as panels carved with griffins and tombstones featuring men on horseback.

Finally, there are the carpets, the pride of the museum and some of the finest relics of the art from its earliest days including pieces from Konya that date right back to the 13th century. Most are appropriately displayed in the grand ceremonial hall along with pieces of fine inlaid Ottoman woodwork.

The collections aside, from the terrace of the museum you get a spectacular view of Sultanahmet Cami (Blue Mosque) with one of its famous six minarets currently partially dismantled for restoration. The old ethnography section that used to display wonderful pieces of nomadic finery will not reopen for another six months, but before you leave the museum you should take a quick look at a fairly nondescript arch with a pair of painted rosettes on the ceiling in front of it in the lobby. These are the last traces of the Düğümlü Baba Tekke, a dervish lodge rediscovered during restoration work.

The tekke was a shrine to Şeyh Hafız Mustafa Efendi (d. 1886), a madman who used to knot pieces of rag to his clothes, hence his nickname, Düğümlu Baba (the holy man of the knots). A popular meeting place for those with mental health issues, the tekke was closed along with all the others in the city by order of Atatürk in 1925. Its ruins were completely demolished in 1965 when work on restoring the palace started.

Obelisk of Theodosius, Hippodrome

The Hippodrome

Not to be missed on the ground floor behind the ticket desk are unexpected pieces of the old Hippodrome, the Byzantine chariot-racing circuit over whose remains İbrahim's palace was built. Other than these rather enigmatic chunks of masonry with tunnels running through them the only other structural remnant of the Hippodrome is the Sphendone, the soaring brick outer wall that used to support the tiered seating at the rounded end of the stadium. Pictures and photos beside the newly uncovered section in the museum reveal what the stadium must have looked like in its heyday when huge crowds cheered on their favorite teams with all the fervor of Galatasaray, Fenerbahçe and Beşiktaş fans today.

Until the recent repaving of the Hippodrome it was easy to stand at the opposite end of it, near the circular Alman Çeşmesi (German Fountain), and get a sense of the shape of the stadium as the traffic followed roughly the same route as had been taken by the chariots. Now that the whole area has been pedestrianized the shape is a little harder although not impossible to discern especially if you remember that the monuments in the center - - the Obelisk, the Serpents' Column and the Braided Obelisk - - originally formed some of the decorations of the Spina (Spine) running down the middle of the stadium.

The most immediately impressive of these monuments is the Dikilitaş or Obelisk of Theodosius. In 390 the Byzantine emperor Theodosius had this hieroglyph-inscribed piece of granite transported here from Thebes in Egypt where it had originally served as a memorial to the triumphs of Pharaoh Tuthmosis III (r. 1479-1425 BC). It then apparently languished in a corner of the Hippodrome until eventually an administrator named Proclus worked out how to lever it into an upright position on a plinth decorated with carvings showing the emperor attending a chariot race and awarding a crown of laurels to the victor.

The obelisk was partially broken in transit from Egypt but is still in startlingly good condition considering its age, especially when you look at the shattered remains of the Serpents' Column nearby. Originally in the shape of three intertwined snakes whose heads formed a tripod to support a golden cauldron, this, too, was originally built to commemorate a military victory, in this case that of the Greeks over the Persians at Plataea in 478 B.C.; it was reputedly made from the shields of the defeated troops. Made to stand in front of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, it was brought here by Emperor Constantine the Great in c. 330. Of the snakes' heads only one still survives (although not on display) in the İstanbul Archeological Museum.

Either Constantine or Theodosius was probably also responsible for bringing the unadorned Örme Dikilitaş (Knitted Obelisk) to the Hippodrome. A pale imitation of the impressive Obelisk of Theodosius, this was once covered by bronze plates paid for in the 10th century by Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus. They seem to have disappeared during the disastrous Fourth Crusade in 1204.

Qajar mirrors

Selçuk bowls

Source: http://www.todayszaman.com/travel_istanbuls-museum-of-turkish-and-islamic-arts-revisited_368065.html