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Interesting afternoon spent exploring the Topkapi Palace
including the Harem..
as well as seeing a few mahoosive diamonds and the Topkapi Dagger in the treasury..
The Second Courtyard
At the far end of the First Courtyard is "Bab-us Selam", the Gate of Salutations, better known as the "Orta Kapi", Middle Gate. This was the entrance to the Inner Palace and the passage was only on foot for authorized people. The gateway is a typical military architecture of the Conqueror Mehmed II's time, twin octagonal towers capped with conical roofs. Above the outer gate is the tugra, the imperial monogram of Suleiman the Magnificient and a calligraphic inscription reading "There is no God but God and Mohammed is his prophet". The chambers on the towers hosted the gatekeepers and one of them was for the visitors and ambassadors. The visitors were first taken to the room, served refreshments and then accepted by the Grand Vezir or Sultan. There was another small room for prisoners awaiting execution.
In the Second Courtyard, there are five paths radiating to different chambers of the palace. The second path from the left leads to Divan ,the advisory, judiciary and administrative council of the Sultan. The second path from the right leads to Palace Kitchens, which now serves as Chinese and Japanese Porcelain Collection. The enormously big chimneys give the idea about the population of the palace in the former times. On the opposite of the Porcelain Collection, the 18th-19th C. beautiful European and Ottoman Glass - Silverware Collection could be seen. On the left of Porcelain Collection, there are two different sections of Kitchen Utensils and Ottoman Vases - Porcelain Collection. In the latter, the coffee cups which the Ottoman Sultans are depicted on are worth seeing.
The First Courtyard
The main entrance to the palace is through Bab-i Humayun, the Imperial Gate. The monumental gateway was erected by Mehmed "the Conquerer" in 1478. The rooms in the gateway housed the guards who were watching the palace at all times in day and night. The imperial monogram (Tugra) is the one of Mehmed II, and the other calligraphic insciptions go back to the reconstruction of the gateway by Abdul Aziz in 1867.
The Imperial Gate leads to the First Court of the palace which is sometimes known as "the Courtyard of the Janissaries". The Janissaries were the paid soldiers of the sultan who were staying in the First Court when on duty. During the decline of the Ottoman Empire in the 17-18th century, they lost their effectiveness as a military force and caused a lot of violence. The Janissarry Corps was finally abandoned by Mahmud II in 1826 who was a reformist sultan.
The First Courtyard is not considered as the palace proper, it is just the entrance to the palace. There were the palace bakeries and the grounds of the Great Palace of Byzantium on the right side. To the left of the entryway, there is a small Byzantine Church of Hagia Irene and far more to the right is the state mint (darphane) and the Outer Treasury. Just to the north of those buildings, a road leads down to Gulhane Park and the Archeological Museums.