Museum in Istanbul

The Great Palace Mosaic Museum

Open Time: 09:30
Closing Time: 17:00
Closed Day: Monday
Area: Edirne Kapı
City: Istanbul
Country: Turkey
Phone: (county code:+90 city code: 212 ) 518 1205

The Great Palace museum is located to the south of the Blue Mosque inside the Arasta Bazaar, which was the külliye of the mosque. The Museum was constructed in order to include mosaic floring that remained in partially good condition on the northeastern side of the arcaded coourtyard of the Great palace of Byzantine Empire. The Mosaics of the Great Palace deted between 450 and 500 A. D. They were processed with a unique mastery. religious issues are not depicted in the mosaics. Instead, the busjects are taken from daily life and nature. These include a gryphon eating a lizard, an elephant strugglign with a lion an mare suckling a colt children herding geese, a man milking a goat, a child feeding his donkey, a young girl carrying a pitcher, bears eating apples and a hunter hunting a tiger.

The Great Palace Mosaic Museum was opened in 1953 affiliated with the Museum of Archaeology. It was later affiliated with the Musaeum of Hagia Sophia in 1979. In 1997 the project prepared within the framework of a protocol between the Minestry of Culture, the General Directorship of Museum and Monuments and the Academy of Science of Austria in Stuides fo the restoration and conservation of mosaics was complated.