{"id":2444,"date":"2014-11-02T01:26:00","date_gmt":"2014-11-02T00:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/merrington.net\/?p=2444"},"modified":"2014-11-02T01:30:36","modified_gmt":"2014-11-02T00:30:36","slug":"carpet-museum-at-haghia-sophia-istanbul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/merrington.net\/?p=2444","title":{"rendered":"Carpet Museum at Haghia Sophia, Istanbul"},"content":{"rendered":"

We had a few more things to talk about in Istanbul. \u00a0Now that we are back at home and respectably moved in, I thought I would share a few more photos. While I am sure I should blog in order, I enjoyed this museum so much we will start here.<\/p>\n

One of the first things you should do in Istanbul is buy a 3 Day museum pass and you can have entry without queuing for tickets at each site. Having said that the museum pass doesn’t include the carpet museum. \u00a0The carpet museum at Haghia Sophia is absolutely worth a visit and if you go early, as we did you will have the museum to yourself with the guard’s full attention, which was wonderful because he shared his knowledge of the rugs and carpets with us.<\/p>\n

\"Restored<\/a>
Restored carpet on display at the Haghia Sophia’s Carpet Museum<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Louise and Frosty were scouting out Istanbul and sending us wonderful tips, including visiting the Carpet museum. Their photos convinced us it was worth a visit.<\/p>\n

The Carpet Museum is now housed in the circa\u00a01742\u00a0Imaret attached to the rear of Haghia Sophia, immediately adjoining the Sultanahmet entrance to the Topkapi Palace and the Ahmet lll fountain. The Imaret was used as a soup kitchen for the poor with sinks, ovens and stoves to prepare food for the poor.<\/p>\n

\"Rare<\/a>
Rare and beuatiful piece from Carpet Museum<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Hurriyet Daily News describes the three different chambers lining the courtyard and their carpet: The first gallery displays carpets from the Anatolia Seljuk, \u00a0the second gallery displays Central and East Anatolian carpets from the Ottoman era, while the third gallery contains\u00a0carpets from Usak,along with the ovens.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The Ovens at the carpet museum. Feeding the poor in its earliest incarnation.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If you have children or you are still a kid at heart, you will enjoy the interactive carpet on the floor in front of the oven. As you walk over this space the tiles\u00a0illuminate a\u00a0carpet under your feet. Our wonderful guide showed James how to spread his arms to attain the full effect. There was a bit of laughter as these two men tried to assist me in getting the perfect photo.<\/p>\n

\"Interactive<\/a>
Interactive carpet<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There are plenty of English displays, so you learn about the different carpets with the aid of our very able guide. We enjoyed this museum and we loved the fact that we were able to learn more about the carpets, musing about how long they have survived.<\/p>\n

\"Our<\/a>
Our favorite Istanbul guide in front of beautiful prayer rugs, each square for a person<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We had a few more things to talk about in Istanbul. \u00a0Now that we are back at home and respectably moved in, I thought I would share a few more photos. While I am sure I should blog in order, I enjoyed this museum so much we will start here. One of the first things … Continue reading Carpet Museum at Haghia Sophia, Istanbul<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[48,42,63,24,6,54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-antiquities","category-art-and-sculpture","category-haghia-sophia","category-tradition","category-travel","category-turkey"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3VxXq-Dq","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/merrington.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/merrington.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/merrington.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/merrington.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/merrington.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2444"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/merrington.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2444\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2453,"href":"https:\/\/merrington.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2444\/revisions\/2453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/merrington.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/merrington.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/merrington.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}