This album contains all our galleries which are not for our talks
Arts & Crafts; Mosaic; Military and Sea Museums
The Arts and Crafts Museum is in an old palace on the Hippodrome. Restored fairly recently, a lot of the previous exhibits have gone, although there is now a good historical series.
An antique Ladik prayer carpet from the Konya area
Tile showing the Al-Harran mosque in Medina
One of several highly illustrated Korans. Here showing the mosques at Mecca and Medina
A tableau interior of an Ottoman house. No longer displayed.
The Great Palace Mosaic Museum houses 10th century floor and wall mosaics from the Byzantine era Palace.
A small part of the floor mosaic display
Mosaic showing an ibis
The Eagle and Snake motif represents good triumphing over evil.
The wall panel is one of the series of The Seasons
The Military Museum in Harbiye is mostly famed for the daily concerts of the Janisery (Mehter) Band
The band marches in. Showing several instrument types
The drummer produces different sounds using a large stick at the front and this small stick at the back
The star of the show is the Kettledrummer in the middle
Military museum illustration of action during the conquest of Constantinople (1453). There is also a separate 360 degree Panorama Museum near the city walls.
The Sea (or Naval) Museum is in Beşiktaş.
Barbarosa (Red Beard) was Spanish but came to work as an admiral in the Ottoman navy. His statue is outside the Sea Museum.
One of the long caiques, which were fast ferries for the elite and the palace.
A reconstructed war galley from the mid 17th century (reign of Sultan Mehmet IV)
The Sea Museum is one of several housing sections of the chain used to block the Golden Horn. Last required in 1453, the chain was about 750m long
Santral Museum is at Bilgi University at the top of the Golden Horn. Santral was the first, and for a long time the only, power station for Istanbul.
The main control panel of the power station at Santral
Ampere gauge over the main control panel.
The main turbine hall. The equipment was a mix of German, Swiss and French, matching Ottoman trading relationships in the early 20th century. Signage is variously in german, turkish and english.
A motorised valve used to make minor adjustments to the alternators to align the supply phases
The Carpet Museum used to be in the sultan's lodge of the Blue Mosque, when it was dim and rarely visited. It is now housed in the imaret (kitchens) behind Hagia Sofia.
The ovens in the Hagia Sofia imaret. Now part of the carpet museum
There are actually relatively few carpets in the carpet museum, fewer than in the Arts & Crafts Museum.
The most useful part of the carpet museum is the information panels explaining the iconography of Turkish carpets. Here is a reference to the Çıntemani three-disc motif.