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The great palace of the
Roman and Byzantine Emperors was located on the slopes of the first
hill overlooking the Marmara Sea and the Bosphorus, in other words,
in the gardens of Topkapi Palace and the slopes to the south of the
hippodrome.
The location of this palace exerted considerable influence on the
orientation of urban life throughout the whole of Byzantine period
and in the Turkish period and played a vital role in determining the
site of Topkapi palace. You can see bellow an imaginary
reconstruction of the palace as you can not see in Istanbul the
palace itself
At the mosaic museum you will be able to see mosaics belonging to
the palace dated from the 4-5th century A.D. Excavations started in
1935 and again in 1953 when the museum was set up. The mosaics were
apparently covered over the 6th century by marble pavements and
built over in 7-8th century.
The mosaics of the great palace which are displayed in situ are made
of minute stone tesserae. Although the museum is small you will be
able to see beautiful and mosaics extremely tactile in effect. The
subject matter is secular, you will see: a lion devouring a lizard,
a stag entwined with a snake, a woman giving breast to a child, the
combat of a hunter and a tiger, a child feeding a donkey, among
others
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