first of all, I would just like to apologise for the prolonged hiatus that has afflicted this blog over the past few months. This is pretty much attributable to revision and exam panic, followed by a period in which I savoured the opportunity to do absolutely nothing for a while. However, I'm back, with an exceptionally long, photo-filled post.
In between exams and results, I went on holiday with a group of friends to Turkey. After a week of doing nothing by a pool/the sea in Kalkan, three of us headed to Istanbul for a bit of culture. I'd studied Constantinople in the tenth century for one of my final year modules, so was super excited to see lots of buildings I'd studied in real life. There's the added benefit that as a result of the fact that Turkey is now an almost totally Islamic country, all the former Byzantine churches are now classed as 'museums', and thus can feature on this blog. Yey!
Here's a selection of snaps from some of the beautiful museums that we visited - when mosaics and tiles are involved, looking up really is the best thing to do.
The first museum we visited was the Chora Church, a former Byzantine church with some genuinely breathtaking mosaics.
Here's my extremely well-trained boyfriend looking up:
I loved this mosaic - it shows the Christian noble who funded the church giving a miniature model of said church to Christ. I really like how, despite being a medieval Christian, he looks so eastern and exotic.
Even the gift shop had an awesome ceiling!
The same afternoon, we visited the Topkapi palace, a former Ottoman palace that is now a museum. The building itself was a central part of what was being 'displayed' in the museum, but there were also a selection of Ottoman and more general Islamic items, gifts and relics. With the exception perhaps of the relic of the Prophet Mohammad's beard hair (I kid you not), the best part was the Harem, which was filled with stunning tiled walls and ceilings. This is only a selection of the beauties on offer.
Such a lovely setting to wander round on a warm and sunny afternoon.
The following morning, the next 'museum' we visited was the big one - The Hagia Sophia. Despite the fact that a good half of the church/mosque/museum was under scaffolding (I'm told this is an almost permanent feature), it was still overwhelmingly breathtaking, and lived up to ALL my expectations. I became a massive fangirl in the presence of the 9th century mosaic of the virgin and child in the apse, which was something I'd written a gobbet on in one of my final exams!
Me with the Hagia Sophia (hi there).
Photodump of the beautiful beautiful interior
The above picture highlights two of the things that are the most visually appealing about the Hagia Sophia, in my opinion - the juxtaposition of Christian and Muslim, and the low-hanging lights that feature in all mosques and create an extremely ambient and magical atmosphere.
Aforementioned 9th century mosaic
The picture below is of another cute mosaic in the style of that from the Chora church - on the left is Justinian, founder of the St Sophia church, handing a model of it to the Virgin and child, whilst on the left, Constantine does the same with the city he founded and to which he gave his name.
The above final picture from the Hagia Sophia shows the resident cat that was chilling at the entrance. It was so cute, and totally knew how to play up for the crowd. I am so jealous that it gets to look at (or, in the case of the picture, turn its back on…) such a beautiful museum every day.
The final museum we visited in Istanbul was the Istanbul Archaeology Museum, which was a lot more like a 'conventional museum'. My friend Ellen, who studied archaeology and anthropology as her degree and devoted a lot of time to a module on Roman Art , was super excited to see some classical statues, as well as the sarcophagus of Hadrian. However, that was not to be. It turned out that, unbeknown to us, the museum was/is/will be for a long time under refurbishment, so that it's basically all under scaffolding and only a very tiny part of the collections are actually being displayed. This was pretty disappointing, especially as we'd paid quite a bit to come in.
However, one of the only benefits of the paucity of displays accessible in the museum was that it meant that we spent a lot of time looking at and discussing the 'shell' of the museum - its architecture. The museum's inside was like a time machine - not going back to the classical or medieval artefacts that were being shown, but back to the 1970s/80s! Check it out…
Very much under construction...
I was so so excited for my trip to Istanbul, and it definitely lived up to the hype. Next up is a trip to somewhere completely different - Singapore! I've been assured that the National Museum is architecturally quite something, so I'm excited to share pictures when I get back.
