Istanbul Archaeology Museums

The Alexander Sarcophagus, carved in the fourth century BC with battle and hunting scenes once thought to show Alexander the Great, is the star of the Istanbul Archaeology Museums (İstanbul Arkeoloji Müzeleri). It was excavated at the royal necropolis of Sidon by Osman Hamdi Bey, the painter and archaeologist who founded the museum in the late Ottoman period. It stands among other remarkable sarcophagi from the same site, including the Sarcophagus of the Mourning Women.

The complex near Topkapı Palace brings together three museums. The neoclassical main building holds Greek, Roman and Byzantine sculpture. The Museum of the Ancient Orient displays glazed brick panels from Babylon's Ishtar Gate, the Siloam inscription and a tablet of the Hittite–Egyptian Treaty of Kadesh. The Tiled Kiosk, built for Mehmed II in the 1470s and one of the oldest Ottoman buildings in the city, houses Seljuk and Ottoman tiles and ceramics.

The museums suit anyone interested in the ancient world, and a thorough visit takes several hours.