Grand Palace Mosaics Museum
The Great Palace Mosaics Museum is located in the Arasta Market, south of the Sultanahmet Mosque Complex. The building was built to include the partially intact mosaic floor in the northeastern part of the porticoed courtyard of the Byzantine Empire Grand Palace.
The mosaics exhibited in the Great Palace Mosaics Museum, dating back to 450-550 AD, are crafted with unique mastery and are magnificent both artistically and in terms of the richness of the depicted scenes. Mosaic stones consist of limestone, terracotta and colored stones with an average size of 5 millimeters. The depictions are placed between pieces of marble and surrounded by contours.
Religious subjects are not found in the mosaics, which are processed in fish scale style on a white background. The topics are taken from daily life and nature. These include scenes depicting a griffon eating a lizard, a fight between an elephant and a lion, a mare nursing her foal, children herding geese, a man milking a goat, a boy feeding his donkey, a young girl carrying a jug, bears eating apples, and the fight with a hunter tiger.
The museum was opened in 1953 as part of the Istanbul Archaeological Museums, and in 1970 it was connected to the Hagia Sophia Museum.
Source Türkiye Culture Portal History of Istanbul