Through the Outer Gardens of the Saray - Strolling Through Istanbul: The Classic Guide to the City - page 102

period from Selçuk to Ottoman of the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries, while the third and fourth contain some of the best Iznik
ware of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Notice in the
third room a charming eighteenth-century baroque fountain, partly
tiled and partly painted, set into a niche in the wall. These last two
rooms also contain a pair of magnificent kandils, or mosque lamps;
they are both from Sokollu Mehmet Paşa Camii (see Chapter 6) and
are therefore to be dated about 1577. The next two rooms contain
pottery of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, some of it pretty
but Europeanized and lacking in the brilliance and mastery of the
earlier work. But in the last one should notice some very charming
nineteenth-century plates from Çanakkale, painted with a very
restricted palette in a sort of expressionist style with fish, birds, and
especially boats.
Leaving the Çinili Köşk we walk back again through the
courtyard. As we do so we might be tempted to wander through
the gardens in the museum precincts. In the gardens opposite to the
museum and beside the Çinili Köşk, there is a fascinating collection
of antique fragments which one can examine leisurely while having
a drink in the café there. The most extraordinary object there is a
block of marble carved into the form of two colossal Gorgon heads,
identical to another pair we will subsequently see in the Basilica
Cistern (see Chapter 7). All four of these heads were apparently part
of a frieze in the Forum of Constantine (see Chapter 7) on the Second
Hill, and probably originated in a temple in Asia Minor.
Passing through the courtyard exit we turn right on the road outside
and follow it downhill, flanked by ancient columns and capitals. This
road takes us almost to Soğuk Çeşme Kapısı, the entrance to Gülhane
Park, through which we will now stroll.
GÜLHANE PARK
Gülhane Park was once part of the outer gardens of the Saray.
Originally this area would have been the lower town of the ancient
Greek city of Byzantium, whose defence walls followed the same line
as the outer walls of Topkapı Sarayı that we see to our left. The
acropolis of ancient Byzantium was on the present site of the Saray,