Jumps in Time

1453

Simply walking past the mosques in the city of Istanbul feels like time travel, but today we stood at the Ottoman breach of the walls of Constantinople, complete with cannon booms, battle cries, and marching band war music. The Panorama 1453 Historical Museum recreates exactly how the war would have looked in that spot 557 years ago in painstaking detail. A huge painted dome provides backdrop for the scattered cannons and historically accurate accessories, and yet we found ourselves considered as much of a spectacle as what was happening around us. One other group even asked to have their pictures taken with us.

From there, we moved even further back in time to the Church of Chora, which contains the most exquisitely preserved and concentrated examples of Byzantine art still in existence. Our guide was the same art historian who toured the Pope around the Hagia Sofia, and he explained "the stupidity" of Roman art for its perspective and hidden meaning. Byzantine art, he continued, is not simply images on walls, but "the truth." After a traditional Ottoman era lunch, we proceeded to the Sulymaniye Library to see original Turkish translations of manuscripts. They included works by Avicenna, collections of maps, and books on philosophy, religion, physics, and veterinary surgery, all copied in tiny, precise, Arabic calligraphy. I've never been so amazed by words I couldn't read. Before returning to our hotel, we stopped at the Grand Bazaar and walked the mazes of stores selling carpets, jewelry, and knock-off Abercrombie and Fitch shirts.