Istanbul Mosaic Museum

The museum was built on the northern section of the peristyle courtyard of the Great Palace of the Byzantine Empire, where mosaics used to decorate the pavement had been discovered partially in good condition.

Istanbul Mosaic Museum (Great Palace Mosaic Museum), is located close to Sultanahmet Square in Istanbul, Turkey, at Arasta Bazaar. The museum houses mosaics from the Byzantine period, unearthed at the site of the Great Palace of Constantinople.

The museum hosts the mosaics used to decorate the pavement of a peristyle court, dating possibly to the reign of Byzantine emperor Justinian I (r. 527-565). It was uncovered by Turkish archaeologists from the University of St Andrews in Scotland during extensive excavations at the Arasta Bazaar in Sultan Ahmet Square in 1935-1938 and 1951-1954.

The Great Palace mosaics, reflecting a matchless master ship, are dated by specialists to 450-550 AD. The white background of the mosaics resembles fish scales. The scenes depicted on the mosaics are from daily life and nature, rather than being religious. The scenes of a griffin eating a lizard, a fight between an elephant and a lion, a mare nursing her filly, children herding geese, a man milking a goat, a child feeding a donkey, a girl with a jug, bears eating apples and a fight between a hunter and a tiger are among the most spectacular examples displayed in the museum.

Istanbul Mosaic Museum

The area formed part of the south-western Great Palace, and the excavations discovered a large peristyle courtyard, with a surface of 1872 m², entirely decorated with mosaics. It was at this point that the Austrian Academy of Sciences, supervised by Prof. Dr. Werner Jobst, undertook to study and preserve the famous palace mosaic and to carry out additional archeological examinations (1983-1997) within the scope of a cooperative project with the Directorate General of Monuments and Museums in Turkey.