A living civilization creates; a dying one builds museums.

Don't know if I would agree with Martin H. Fischer on this. After all the human race has the tendency to glorify its past and record it for all to see or at lease read about it. Its a sanitized version of the horror of war and destruction that has build many of what we admire whenever we step into most museums around the globe, or tour the remnant of powerful empires. Anyway, continuing on to part II of our summer/fall vacation, here are some of the amazing historical and archeological foot prints we captured on camera:

The Archeology Museum

Egyptian style Sarcophagus of Sidonian King Tabnit (600-525 BC)

Rumored body of Alexander the Great's father, Philip II of Macedon.

 

Statue of a King - Shalmanesar III

large baked clay/jar - early bronze age: 2500-2300 BC

Byzantine Imperial Palaces 

images of every day life during the Byzantine empire!

The Basilica Cistern

the largest of several hundred ancient cisterns that lie beneath the city of Istanbul (formerly Constantinople), Turkey.

The cistern was built in the 6th century during the reign of Byzantine Emperor Justinian

Historical texts claim that 7,000 slaves were involved in the construction of the cistern