Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum, National museum in Sultanahmet, Istanbul, Turkey.
The Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum is housed in a 16th-century palace and displays manuscripts, carpets, ceramics, metalwork, and traditional artworks throughout its rooms. The collection spans multiple periods and regions of the Islamic world.
The palace was built in the 16th century during an early sultan's reign and originally served as a residence for a high-ranking official. In the 1980s, the building was transformed into a museum to make the extensive collection available to the public.
The museum displays crafts and artworks that played roles in everyday life—from carpets to ornately decorated objects people used daily. These pieces show how people in different Islamic societies lived and shaped their world.
The museum is near major mosques and easy to reach on foot when walking through the old city's historic streets. It is open throughout the week and has comfortable rooms for exploring, allowing visitors to move at their own pace.
The collection holds carpets from different regions and trade routes, showing how patterns and techniques spread over centuries. Many of these pieces were everyday items that show how artistic craft was woven into ordinary people's lives.
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