Istanbul Archaeological Museum

Saturday morning Tove and Lucas needed to go back to the hospital for a post-op check-up, so the rest of us had to come up with something to do on our own. We wanted to save the major sights for when we could all go, so we opted to start with a visit to the Istanbul Archaeological Museum.

This is a huge complex in three parts, but currently two of them are undergoing a massive renovation, which left us to visit only the main building. We missed out on the Tiled Pavilion which was a shame, as I really wanted to learn more about Iznik tiles. Ah well, at least it was really sunny and beautiful weather!

This museum holds huge importance as the first Turkish museum, but it is also one of the largest museums in the world. The collections formed during the late 19th century by museum director and painter Osman Hamdi Bey, and it houses about a million artifacts, brought from the imperial lands and ranging from a variety of cultures. It opened its doors in 1891.

We have a very treasured masterpiece by Osman Hamdi Bey in the collections of the Louvre Abu Dhabi, one of our main masterpieces. It was really nice to get to know more about him here, and about all the different things that he did as he was not only a painter, but is also considered to be Turkeys first archaeologist and took part in huge excavations. He was instrumental in the foundation of this museum.

During the excavations in Sayda (Sidon, Lebanon) 1878-88 he reached the necropolis of King Sidon, and returned to Istanbul with many sarcophagi. Especially this famous one below, originally believed to hold the remains of Alexander the Great. Needing some place to display them, the discovery of this and the other sarcophagi was the catalyst for the creation of this museum.

This 2300 year old sarcophagus is one of the most well-preserved and most detailed sacrophagi in history, but, it does not hold Alexander the Great. Scholars now believe it was crafted for a Phoenician king, possibly Abdullonimus, the ruler of Sidon.

We spent quite a lot of time in the museum, as it consisted of two floors, filled with interesting displays. I very quickly got overwhelmed, so I did my usual trick and photographed all the signs, so that I can study them and learn more, on my own time later on.

The collection spans 5000 years, and covers Istanbul through the ages as well as presents many Greek, Roman and Byzantine artworks.

I enjoyed the room about Troy:

They also had a really interesting part in the museum taking about archaeology and all the different techniques used to date objects and so on.

The Head of Zeus, 3rd-2nd century BCE.

The sculptures were been grouped into Anatolian, Persian, Classical, Hellenistic and Roman collections.

The development of ancient sculpture from archaic to the late stage could be observed clearly here. The collections included not only statues of mythological gods and heroes, but also portraits and busts of Roman emperors.

The Halicarnassus Lion, one of the few remaining pieces of one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world. It decorated the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, built between 353-351 BCE in present day Bodrum, Turkey. It was destroyed by earthquakes during the 11-15th centuries.

A little break after a long visit! They waited for me while I was in the - souvenir shop..!

We then decided to walk around for a bit, waiting for Tove and Lucas to finish up.

We thought we had time to also do the Topkapi Palace, but when we realised the entrance fee was 2000 TRY (=530 SEK/£40/€48) per PERSON (!). So we decided against that, at least for this day, as we then didn't want to rush through it all.

Instead we went for a coffee to regroup, and to catch up with the others to continue our sightseeing! More to come in the next post!