Mehmet was 19 when he inherited the throne of the Ottoman turks, and 21 when he conquered Constantinople. This is his sword.
These swords are from the collection of the Ottoman emperor but date to the time of the Crusades, when Christian crusaders sacked Constantinople.
The Christian paintings and mosaics of Hagia Sophia were plastered over when the Turks took Constantinople. This helped preserve them until today.
This Medusa head was installed upside down in the Roman cisterns of Istanbul. The builders collected leftover columns and stone from around the city to make up the cistern's hundreds of columns, and apparently someone wanted to get rid of this Medusa. She was put at the very back of the cistern in a corner facing the wall. Her sister, another Medusa, is nearby and sideways to the ground.
The Blue Mosque is called that because it has beautiful blue tiles from Isnik (the former Nicaea) decorating its interior. It has six minarets, more than any other mosque in the world. It was built by the Sultan Ahmet across from the Hagia Sophia. Because Hagia Sophia had been a Christian church, Ahmet wanted to build a mosque with a bigger dome. But his architect told him it wasn't possible (the technology had been lost in the intervening thousand years). So Ahmet, instead, put up six minarets.
The Hagia Sophia, or Divine Wisdom, was the cathedral of the Byzantine emperors at a time when Constantinople was the greatest city in the world, while the rest of Europe was sunk in the Dark Ages. For many centuries after it was built, it had the largest dome in the world. The four minarets were added after the Turks conquered the city in 1453.
The medieval church of Chora, now a museum, has the best mosaics left in Istanbul. In the parecclesion, you can see how a newer style of fresco painting was developing under the influence of the Italian Renaissance.
Jesus raising Adam and Eve from the dead on the Day of Judgment
The scene in front of the Dom when I was there was very much like the medieval fairs that were once held there, with children trying new games (this one is a child's version of bungee cords) and booths selling all kinds of handmade things, food and flowers.
This church is attached to the Dom, but is a separate church. Apparently most of the windows were blown out during the war, because the current ones are not old.
This is one of the few old paintings that survived in the church.
The Judengasse includes the oldest known Jewish house in Germany at number 2. The Jews came to the Rhineland during the time of the Roman empire.
This house seems to show influence from Venice and the Middle East.
This house seems to show influence from Venice and the Middle East.
This enormous Roman gate was built in the 200s, when Trier was the most important city on the Roman frontier, and later made into a church, which kept it from being used as a stone quarry as most Roman buildings were. It was returned to its original form during the Enlightenment.
"North gate of the imperial Roman city. Built in the 2nd century A.D. The largest and best preserved city gate of the Roman empire. From 1035 to 1800, the Saint Simeon church."
I think this is one of the coolest things in the Louvre. The monks are almost life-sized.