you know we've all grown up hearing the stories of
kings and their conquests and every major city has some really cool
history but nothing else compares to this place this is the story of
Istanbul
ok so I'm inside the archaeology museum of Istanbul and
I haven't even stepped in a building ,yet but you can already see all
these major busts and statues from ancient Rome and ancient Greece surrounding
the place but let's go and check out some of the major exhibits now so
behind me right now is the Alexander sarcophagus which is one of the
main ,attractions of this museum and this was built around 4th century
bc so 2 400 years ago and has markings of Alexander the great on it
it was once believed this sarcophagus was actually created for Alexander
the great now if you pay close attention to this sarcophagus you'll
notice that it's almost built in the structure of a Greek temple
that was something they used to do with ancient Greek sarcophaguses
even on the other ones over here.
that was signed between the ancient Egyptians and the
kingdom of the Hittites that controlled much of Anatolia which is turkey
today. It is believed to be the oldest surviving peace treaty in the
world along with its counterpart that was found in ancient Egypt so this
is really cool thank you abi. thank you. have a nice day. you too, catch
you guys later. I was literally walking past the baklava shop that i
usually go to and i ran into my friend Hassan who runs the shop and
he gave me a free baklava. Turkish hospitality guys. I've never seen
this anywhere else.
okay so I'm gonna fast forward a little bit from
ancient Greece move to the third century a.d and talk about one of the
most important statesmen in history and one of the biggest roman
emperors Constantine the Great. Constantine reigned from the end of the
3rd century to the start of the 4th century a.d. He did a lot of
very very important things. he brought together a lot of the factions of
the roman empire that were fighting against each other and combined
them to one big roman empire and he also moved the capital of the roman
empire east to Byzantium which is Istanbul today and he renamed it
to Constantinople after himself and he put up this massive column
called the column of Constantinople. Constantine also did a lot of
other very historic stuff he was the first ever roman emperor to
become a Christian and he legalized Christianity stopping the
persecution of Christians in the roman empire
so 40 years after constantly the great came another
roman emperor named Theodosius the great ,who made even a bigger impact
for Christianity Theodosius went on to make Christianity the state religion
becoming the first ever emperor of a major empire to do so and the world
would never be the same again after that. Constantinople became the
center of the Christian world and it would stay that way for hundreds and
hundreds of years it's hard to overstate the impact that Theodosius had
on the state of Christianity and world history and he's considered a
saint by a lot of Christians today and in order to commemorate
Theodosius instead of building a column like it was done for
Constantine they made an obelisk for him behind me
called the Theodosius obelisk. Now if you pay close attention to the
carvings on the obelisk you might think that this looks like
something straight out of Egypt and it is. this was an obelisk built
for a king three and a half thousand years ago so 1800 years before
Theodosius was born and they had it transported from Egypt to here to
erect it all the way over here. Now for emperor number three let's talk
about Justinian the great arguably the greatest Byzantine emperor of
all time, so this guy came along around 150 years after
Theodosius and he was on a mission to conquer as much
area as possible. He went on to control large parts of Europe, the middle
east, even the entire north African coast and parts of Egypt and he
took the byzantine empire to its prime
it was never bigger than that ever again after his reign and
he also wanted to establish himself as a central figure of Christianity a
central spiritual figure so he went on to build this building that
is probably the most famous one in Turkey and probably one of the most
famous places of worship in the entire world: the Hagia Sophia
so that massive building behind me right there is the
Hagia Sophia ,which was built in 537 by Justinian the great and this
building really changed world architecture and that is not an
overstatement. this is 180 feet tall or 55 meters and it was the biggest
building of worship in the whole world for I think around a thousand
years and it was also the central cathedral of the east orthodox
Christian church until 1453 when something happened that would change
the course of world history forever.
so over the centuries the byzantine empire lost a lot
of land and by the time the 15th century arrived the byzantine empire was
a fraction of what it once used to be, but the center of it Constantinople
still stood strong in the middle of all these other empires that were
taking over the area and it was primarily because the city was
surrounded on most sides by water and on the west with these series of
walls: the infamous walls of Constantinople, that were impenetrable
for a thousand years. A lot of kings including ottoman sultans try
to break through these walls and fail miserably but in 1453 Mehmed II the
sultan of the ottomans who is now more often called Mehmed.
so right after Mehmed ii conquered Constantinople the
very first thing he did was take his horse straight here to the Hagia
Sophia bring an imam and then host the Friday Islamic prayers so
the central cathedral of eastern orthodox Christianity turned almost
overnight into one of the world's largest and most important mosques one
of the most interesting things was they removed all the
Christian symbols from the Hagia Sophia and replaced them with Arabic
calligraphy and
Islamic writing as you can see all around me in 1935 after the republic of Turkey
emerged from the ottoman empire they turned it into a museum but
last year in 2020 they turned it back again into a mosque so now there are
separations in the mosque in places where the tourists can visit and
in places where people come to pray
I've had the privilege of going to a lot of very impressive
historical buildings so far in my life but I've only been to two places
that make me feel like I'm inside a living work of art from the
architecture and that would be this building right here and the saint
peter's church at the Vatican which was even bigger than this but
this really is impressive. I think this is my 10th time coming to this
place and it definitely won't be the last time. So the next thing
that sultan Mehmed wanted to do was make a palace that was fit for a
king and then he built the Top Kapi palace
we are at the Top Kapi palace right now. he most
interesting thing about this palace that sets it apart from all other
palaces in Europe at least is the structure of the whole thing there's
no huge tall castle in the middle where the king is living you have
to remember that the ottomans were nomadic tribes in the past moving
around in horses and setting up encampments and tents and then the way
they would set it up is they would have a bunch of low tents. The most
important person, the sultan would be at the middle of the tent in
the middle of all the other tents this was done partly for security.
that way the sultan would be at the center of the tent or of the palace
and if anyone wanted to get to him they would have to go through all
these other tents or all these other buildings and courtyards in this
case. so this place not only was the residence of the sultan or the
king but it was also the administrative center of the whole ottoman
empire. so comparing to the US that would be the equivalent of
having the white house and capitol hill in the same place.
It was also the
art and cultural center as well and now it's been turned into a museum
that we can go around and see, but the most important thing for me
at least they have here are relics from the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon
him and other very important prophets. objects owned by them are still
at this palace and this is the only place on earth where you can come and
see these things,so once you're inside the Topkapi palace there's a lot
of gates you have to go through and one of the important gates is
the gate of salutation and this was the gate
where only the sultan was allowed to enter on
horseback so everyone else except for him had to get off their horses and
walk in. there's a stepping stone outside the gate where all the horses
with the high officials would come and they would like step off the next
horse would come i just saw some stuff which has probably more historical
significance than anything I've ever seen. well let me give you a
backstory so this makes more sense.
Since the start of Islam there had basically been this
Islamic caliphates. From what I understand there were essentially Islamic
governments that were governing over the areas of mecca medina and
the head of this government was termed the caliph and his job was to
defend the holy cities of mecca and medina and the caliphates had
changed a few times over the centuries as the balance of power had
shifted in the middle east and north Africa. Until 1517 it was controlled
by the mamluk ,dynasty which was based in Cairo in Egypt. in 1517
the ottomans beat the mamluks in a war, conquered
Egypt and took over the whole area of the middle east
in the mecca and medina and that was the start of the ottoman caliphate.
The ottoman sultan whoever that was was also the Islamic Caliph and it
was his job to be the defender of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina and
the defender of Islam in a sense and one of the things that happened when
this transfer of caliphates happened in 1517
where these valuable objects which were belongings of
the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him ,were passed on to the ottoman
caliphate and they were brought right here in Topkapi palace and
over the years the ottoman sultans collected more and more more
belongings and they were all still in display in Topkapi palace and you
can come and see it and surprisingly not a lot of people actually
know about this but there is the staff of prophet Moses which he used to part
the sea right up on display. there's the sword of David. there's the
turban of prophet
Yusuf or joseph there is a dress that belongs to
Fatima then there's the sword that belonged to Prophet Muhammad peace be
upon him himself his tooth are on
display in a case but they're there teeth that he lost in a battle when he
was hit by an axe I think. His handwriting you can see over there
because the letter of him is preserved. His beard is still there in
a casing you can go see it. The pot that he used to drink water from is
still there.
it's really hard to find so many things that belong to
the people that that change the world in inconceivable ways if you're talking
about ancient times especially and you can see all their belongings
in here in Topkapi palace and it costs what maybe 12 to get in and see it
it's really incredible, right now I'm in the side streets of the Grand
bazaar which was also by the way started by the ottomans right after
Istanbul was captured but that's a whole lot of other history that
we're not going to get into in this post.
so right now I'm at the Suleymaniye mosque which was built during the reign of Suleiman the magnificent, arguably the greatest ottoman emperor of all time. he came to power in 1520, he established himself as one of the most important statesmen in Europe during the 16th century altogether. He defeated numerous Christian kings at Belgrade at Rhodes and expanded the ottoman empire.
largely over north Africa and the middle east and even
to different parts of Europe he also made a lot of very important judicial
changes in the ottoman empire regarding criminal law regarding education
and taxation to benefit the people in the ottoman empire so he's a very
popular
Ottoman sultan among the Turks to this day and he also
oversaw what is called the golden age of ottoman art literature and
architecture he had his chief ottoman architect Mimar Sinan build
this mosque between the years of 1550 and 1557 and Mimar Sinan is widely
considered the greatest ottoman architect of all time. Like the pope
had his Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo the ottomans had their Mimar
Sinan who made more than 300 ottoman structures and he has a lot of
famous mosques but probably none more famous than this one right here,
the Sulemaniye
mosque which is the second largest mosque in all of
Europe and if you ever ask a Turkish person what their favorite mosque is,
they're almost certainly going to tell you it's this one it's the size of
this mask should probably put you in awe the moment you step in
here but what's really impressive is the special architecture. So
you see that top dome that is very high. interestingly that dome is
supported by four mini domes under it and that was a very unique style
that Sinan used in his other mosques as well. Because this was meant to
be the mosque for the city the mosque for the king they constructed
the pillars by bringing pillars from different parts of the ottoman
empire so there's a pillar that was taken from Topkapi palace there
was a pillar that was taken from Alexandria, Egypt there was a pillar
that was brought in from
Golden horn and this area provides a pretty nice view
of that inlet and the Bosphorus sea was this the end of the ottoman empire
and history in Istanbul? of course not but there's only so
much i can fit in one post. if you like this post don't forget to comment
it. if you want a more real-time update of these places like a few
months before i actually make the post.
The blog here I'll catch you guys on the next one…
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