TRY: Istanbul Archaeology Museums

Alemdar Street, Istanbul, Turkey
Tue-Sun: 9.00am - 5.00pm

I took a detour from the courtyard of Topkapi Palace to go to Istanbul Archaeology Museums, which are made up of Archaeological Museum, Museum of the Ancient Orient and Museum of Islamic Art. They house more than one million objects representing almost all of the eras and civilisations in world history.

The entrance fee to the three museums is ₺20.00 (~S$6.30) at the point of writing. Istanbul Museum Pass can be used for entry.

I wonder what they were looking at.

Firstly, I went to the Museum of the Ancient Orient, which is the nearest to the entrance gate. Be awed by the marvelous collections from ancient civilisations.

I felt like touching the brick panels from Isthar Gate in the inner city of Babylon, but I didn't.

Arabian votive statues from approximately 400 to 1 BC can be found in the museum.

Seeing those stuff instantly reminded me of the movie titled 'The Mummy' back in 1999.

Does that double sphinx statue look menacing to you?

If I'm not mistaken, that's a statue of a sage.

 

That's a limestone stela of Sennacherib, one of the kings of Assyria.

Egyptian-Hittite peace treaty is one of the few surviving oldest treaties in the world.

Subsequently, I made my way to the Archaeological Museum in the main building.

Don't you love the purple colour of the stone?

Where are the heads?

The construction of the main building was instigated by Osman Hamdi Bey, an accomplished Ottoman administrator and archaeologist, in 1881.

The main entrance was closed for renovation when I was there, so I had to enter from a side door.

Is that human scared of the horse?

Let's step into the majestic building of Neoclassical architecture.

What a huge section of a Greek column!

Such elaborate carvings~

There are quite a number of high aesthetic sarcophagi in the museum.

The second floor is equally charming.

I'm pretty sure that's Medusa.

Yee-haw!

I'm pretty sure many of us know about Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, beauty and sexuality.

Is that Poseidon?

One section of the museum is dedicated to Istanbul itself from its ancient days to Constantinople to what it's today.

That must be the Bosphorus, right?

Pretty fragments~

A weeping skeleton?

The bottom half of the Bronze Serpent Column is still standing at the Hippodrome.

From the second floor, you can also see an interesting feature of the pediment and shafts of a temple.

As I'd spent too much time on the two museums, I only took a quick glance of the interior of the Museum of Islamic Art without taking any photos inside.

For the same price ₺20.00 (~S$6.30), the three museums are definitely worth the money compared to Hagia Irene.