looking up in Istanbul

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.

a quick apology

hello!

I'm just dropping by to apologise for my online silence over the past month or so. This has been largely down to the 12,000 word epic that I submitted to the history faculty last Friday- otherwise known as my thesis. Now all that stands between me and finishing my undergraduate degree for good is around ten revision-filled weeks and five final exams. How terrifying. This terror is amplified by the fact that I recently received an offer from Oxford, to study for an MSt in Archaeology next year, an offer I am super keen to actually take up. The conditions are likely to be that I am required to achieve a high 2:1 at least, so I really must stop procrastinating and get my head down.

That sadly means that this blog is probably going on a relative hiatus for a little while, likely until early July. My revision workload will probably generally not allow me to either a) visit many museums or b) blog about them during this time, so there really isn't much point pressuring myself to write regularly on here. I also want to make sure that, when I finally get round to it, my Ashmolean post is absolutely perfect! I'm also going to Aachen for a few days next week and want to ensure that when I do blog about the world of Charlemagne, it does the great man justice and isn't clouded by mid-revision panic and inevitable hurriedness.

Apologies again, anyone who is depending upon this blog for happiness and inspiration (ha) - perhaps go out and visit a few museums yourself, and I'll be back in July!

back to where it all started

on Friday I took my family to the British Museum. I've never been at dusk or after dark before, but I definitely will be going again! The lighting is so different and it makes the architecture look especially amazing, and illuminates the objects too! 

Excuse the poor quality iphone snaps. I would definitely recommend paying the BM a visit on a Friday night when it's open until late! Perhaps to see two upcoming things I personally am super excited for - the re opening of room 41, and the Viking exhibition! Both coming in March. 

The Oxford Museum of Natural History

This morning I took a break from the monotony that is thesis writing to pop along to the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, which is reopening today after a fourteen month closure, in which they did something to the roof. To celebrate, the museum put on a special 'dawn till dusk' day of events, with performers, activities and real life creepy crawlies to handle. The museum is a whole two minutes walk from where I live, so there really was no excuse not to check it out! Despite this, I still managed to sleep in and miss being able to grab breakfast in their newly opened cafe, however I'm sure it won't be long before I manage to make it over for a cup of tea and some cake.

Shamelessly went over to ask for a sticker. No regrets.

The building that houses of museum is really cool. People often get confused, because attached to the back is another museum, the Pitt Rivers, displaying ethnographic collections (see future post on this!), however the museum of natural history is housed in its own separate part, and really is quite distinctive. A nice picture of the building from the outside can be found here (not my picture) - it's possible that some of you might recognise it from the detective show Lewis, where someone once tried to jump off the top. Or not…

You might also have heard of the museum because it was the site of the Oxford evolution debate, which took place in 1860 and involved Huxley and Wilberforce arguing over the validity of Darwin's recently published On the Origin of the Species, in which Wilberforce made the famous comment asking whether he was descended from a money on 'his mother or his father's side'. The museum also houses a dodo that has links to Lewis Carroll and the story of Alice in Wonderland. I'll stop there with the history, as the internet will probably be able to tell you more in a considerably more eloquent manner.

Anyway onto the building itself. Here are some snaps I took this morning:

The skeletons suspended from the ceiling are a nice touch. 

As you can see, it's quite snazzy. The building was built in the early 1860s, and has a fancy wrought iron and glass roof -  I particularly like the combination of the stone and wrought iron. Also f you look closely, you can see that the iron is almost all decorated with iron plant decoration, which is a nice touch and in keeping with the general content of the museum as a natural history collection.. According to wikipedia, this is 'combining the Pre-Raphaelite style with the scientific role of the building'. A similar thing is suggested by the inclusion of lots of statues of eminent scientists around the outside of the ground floor court. Wikipedia also tells me that 'Although the University paid for the construction of the building, the ornamentation was funded by public subscription — and much of it remains incomplete. The Irish stone carvers O'Shea and Whelan had been employed to create lively freehand carvings in the Gothic manner. When funding dried up they offered to work unpaid, but were accused by members of the University Congregation of "defacing" the building by adding unauthorised work. According to Acland, they responded by caricaturing the Congregation as parrots and owls in the carving over the building's entrance. Acland insists that he forced them to remove the heads.'

So it appears the building has quite a lot of relatively amusing and contentious history surrounding it too, which is nice!

Anyway, that's that. I'm the first to admit that natural history museums really aren't my specialist subject, but I do love the building at the Natural History Museum, and I think that alone (okay so maybe also combined with its proximity and the fact it's free…) will be enough for me to make the effort to pay it a few more visits while I'm still in Oxford.

exciting news

so after a few weeks of application worry, and an early morning interview trip to London yesterday, it seems I've been given the opportunity to indulge my love of museums for a while longer - thank you, UCL archaeology department!

an aside

I (pretty much) live on a wonderfully named street.

Today's Google Doodle!

I'm currently sitting in the library frantically trying to revise for a college exam on tenth-century Byzantium which I will be sitting in three days time. However, during one of my predictable periods of procrastination, I discovered that today's Google Doodle is really really really cool. It's the British Museum! Who could mistake that wonderful atrium. The reason for the doodle is that today is the BM's 255th birthday, and such a momentous occasion surely deserves to be celebrated. I'm very excited for lots of the things that they are putting on in the course of their 256th year (mainly the Viking exhibition and the reopening of room 41!), and hopefully I'll get to visit soon. When I do, rest assured, I will bombard this blog with pictures!

If you have the chance, head to google.co.uk today and admire the doodle for yourself! Otherwise, here it is...