SUPERB MOSAICS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 220, 17 September 1938, Page 10

SUPERB MOSAICS.

EXCAVATED IN TURKEY.

The interests of archaeology have been enormously aided by the recent decision of tlie Turkish Government to schedule the large area of Stamboul which contains the site of the Hippodrome, the Royal Palaces and the Baths of Zeuxippos on the higher ground, and the lower ground between the Serail and the Bosporus, as an area not to be built on but to remain open for examination and excavation by archaeologists.

| The site of the Hippodrome was excavated jnnd examined, and the results published, by I the archaeological expedition sent by the 1 British Academy in 1928-0 (save a correspondent of the '"Manchester Ouardfan"). At I the same time the famous Baths of Zeuxippos j were first identified and excavated. But then the present ordinance for the sequestration of the area was not in force, and all excavations it hen done were filled in again. The Hippodrome foundations and the Baths of Zeuxippos alike thus lie once more under the soil, [although their remains were photographed and planned in full detail. Baths and a Monastery. An excavation sponsored by the University of St. Andrews has. however, opened up part of the large and complex palace site, and during the last three years has revealed to permanent view the superb mosaics of late Imperial Roman date which decorated the floors of tlie first buildings here. Here is the first concrete reward of the wise decision of the Turkish fiovernmcnt as to the area. It remains now to uncover again the massive watls of tlio Zei:\i[ ipos bath, which lie just below the surface, and to continue the examination of the now derelict and unoccupied area where once the Monastery of Manama lav. l>etween the palace and the seawalls of the Bosporus. Here in 1010. just after the Armistice. French archaeologists, working for the army of occupation, discovered an immense area of the monastery largely intact. St. Sophia. The' second wise decision of the Turkish authorities was to secularise the mighty Church of St. Sophia a few years aw. This decision led at once to the removal first of all of the various Moslem objects which, on the walls and in the domes, had hindered view and struck a discordant note. The great roundels that hung suspended in the apses, inscribed' with the Holy Writ of the Koran, are now pone. Gone, also, is the immense carpet that made any research into the floor and foundations of the church impossible. Now one walks on a stone floor again, ami many strange discoveries have l>een made. One of the most remarkable is that of an area a little to the south of the site of the great altar, where a group of beautiful marble inlaid patterns were revealed.