Preservation and exhibition of mosaics in the light of medieval and Mediterranean examples: The case of the İstanbul Great Palace Mosaics Museum

İstanbul is an important Mediterranean Medieval city where the continents of Europe and Asia intersect, where different civilizations and cultures have intertwined throughout the ages, where people of various religions, languages and races have lived together for centuries. During the Byzantine Empire period, the name of Istanbul was Constantinople, and it was first the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire and then the Byzantine Empire. Constantinople became cosmopolitan capital that dominated the Middle East during the nearly thousand-year Medieval period. Byzantine art and architecture that included the Medieval period, palaces, monuments, castles, walls, and many other works. One of the most important of these works is the Great Palace. The Great Palace Mosaics, which are the works of the Byzantine period, are exhibited in the İstanbul Great Palace Mosaics Museum todays. These mosaics have great importance and value like all the mosaics found in the Medieval Mediterranean, but these mosaics are not known much the others. A protective museum was established in Sultanahmet, the heart of Istanbul and these mosaics are exhibited in this museum todays. Today's, museum structures and the exhibition methods in them have changed a lot with the increase of technology and innovations in design. 3D exhibition, kiosks, touch screens, virtual realities and many other technological exhibition methods are seen todays. The purpose of this study is The Great Palace Mosaics Museum enables the mosaics to be better understood, to reach more people, take more place in the digital environment and to capture the contemporary period. The study was conducted in four stages. In the first stage, the concept of protection, the concept of exhibition and the principles of exhibition were examined. In the second stage, the definition of mosaics, its history and the preservation of mosaics were examined. In the third stage, the museums exhibiting in the works of the Medieval period in the Mediterranean area were analyzed. In the final stage, the Great Palace Mosaics Museum was mentioned, examined and design suggestions were presented within the scope of protection and exhibition in line with the understanding of contemporary museology. Purpose of this study, the preservation and exhibition of mosaics in the light of Mediterranean Medieval examples are analyzed and design suggestions are presented within scope of the preservation exhibition of the Great Palace Mosaics of Istanbul.