Mosaic Museum

In Sultanahmet Square, if you find the correct small road, you are led to the Mosaics Musuem, which houses restored mosaics from a Byzantine period palace. Austrian and Turkish groups worked on the excavation and restoration of the mosaics. Unlike the mosaics in the churches, these have no religious themes. The most common theme was hunting, some rather bloody with animals gorging other animals. Here are some of the more pastoral scenes, including boys with a bird. The museum had an upper walkway, where we could look down on the massive mosic tiled floor below. This is just one half of the floor.

There were also some horses at pasture,...

boy playing with the ducks, ...

and boy holding a lamb. These last two boys may be the same boy. They look alike.

And this piece was titled "mask".

If anyone is disappointed that there are no bloody hunting scenes, send me an e-mail and I will send you the bear eating the lamb. I sure hope it was not the one the boy was playing with!