We enjoyed visiting a few interesting museums in Istanbul, although we wished they were more interactive! The Science & Technology Museum was full of models of ancient technological marvels with brief translations in English about their creators. Perhaps the most intriguing part of this place was the introductory propaganda video about the contributions of the ancient Muslim scientists to the advancement of the world and their ultimate loss of stature when the Romans took over the world, which is apparently now our fault (as evidenced by the many American references in the video!)
 |
| Entrance to the Science & Technology Museum |
 |
| Alex was most interested in pretty much everything in this museum *Chemistry*...the rest of us...hmmm.... |
 |
| Archimedes Screw! It was a long, long year in World History for this boy... |
Having walked a few miles in the blistering heat, cooled off only slightly in the museum (have I mentioned few places in Europe have AC? Their contribution to stop global warming I guess) I convinced the boys we needed to head down into the cistern to cool off. The Basilica Cistern was featured in the James Bond movie From Russia with Love . Originally built by Emperor Justinian in 532 BCE to store water sourced from near the Black Sea via 20km of aqueducts! It was neglected for many centuries, even forgotten for awhile, rediscovered and then finally cleaned up, restored and opened to the public in 1987.
 |
| Amazing how every time the ancients built columns they add frilly Corinthian tops even underground! 336 marble columns inside this space roughly the size of of 2 football fields! |
 |
| For some unknown reason, there are 2 medusa heads at the bottoms of 2 columns; one upside down... |
 |
A column of eyes --always rub your hands on the eye for good luck.
Turkey is full of "eyes" to ward off any evil! |
Last museum was the Istanbul Archaeological Museum, boasting their position as 1 of the top 10 museums in the world, (I may argue that, but the sheer amount of old stuff in there likely supports their claim). We were I was captivated by the ancient Greek artifacts and many more interesting pieces from ancient Rome as well as Byzantine era items. Probably most interesting in all of Istanbul was the plethora of columns strewn about the city streets, as if time had not really bothered with the falling down of yesterday, but rather just moved on to tomorrow, caring just enough to preserve pieces of history under the shade trees.
 |
All these columns had us regaling stories of 6th grade ancient world history
and remembering fondly, Mr. Fleck, at Harman Elementary School in Oakwood! |
 |
| Cool artifact #1: Funeral Stele from Persia 5th century BC |
 |
Cool artifact #2: Late Classical (about 450BC) Greek Lion Statue discovered in Bodrum, Turkey
outside a tomb at Halicarnossus |
 |
| This beauty once held up a Greek temple with her comrades. |
No comments:
Post a Comment