My camera's pictures currently won't upload onto my computer, so I don't have any recent pictures to show. So here's a picture of a large Medusa head used as a column base in the old Byzantine (Justinian, I think) cistern. No one's quite sure why there's these two Medusa heads, or where they came from, or why this one is sideways (and the other one is upside down). We went to the cistern the first full day, same day as the Hippodrome.
Zooming forward in time, here is a picture from the Chora Church, which is famous for its many mosaics and frescoes. This mosaic shows the death of Mary. I thought this was particularly interesting because Jesus is holding a baby in his arms--that baby is actually Mary's soul. Weird, huh? I'm not sure when we went to this museum (church), because apparently I neglected to write about it in my journal. But it was a little later.
For contrast, here's a lovely mosaic that was once part of the floor of the Great (Byzantine) Palace. It depicts two leopards eating a gazelle (I think). There were a lot of fighting scenes in the mosaics: a lion and an elephant, a deer and a snake, and eagle and a snake, a gryphon and... a horse? I think that's what it looks like.Anyway, I hope I figure out the pictures soon, and then I can put up pictures from Troy and Pergama, etc. Until then I'll try to post some more random pictures.
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