Ukryte skarby Chorwacji

Tiles from Iznik cover walls of many ancient mosques and palaces, especially in Istanbul. In 15th-16th century , the production of Iznik ceramics was at its' height. The Suleymaniye Mosque in Istanbul was built on the order of Sultan Suleyman (Suleyman the Magnificent). The construction works began in 1550 and the mosque was finished in 1557. It was built according to the plans of architectural genius of Mimar Sinan and the interior decoration is subtle, with very restrained use of Iznik tiles.In the summer of 2006, holidaying scuba-divers came across a vase among vestiges of an old shipwreck close to Mljet island in Dalmatia, Croatia. The group's leader, archaeologist Jurica Bezak, had an inkling the wreck could be important and told his employer the Croatian Conservation Institute (CCI) about the discovery. The following summer CCI experts examined the site, and began recovering some of the items they found there. They named it the "Sveti Pavao Shipwreck", because it lay close to a dangerous underwater shoal of that name. The serrated rocks, set almost exactly at sea-level, were probably what had brought about the ship's demise. The wreck lies in the 40-50m range, so the divers' work was laborious and difficult. At first it seemed that the wreck was unremarkable, however, it turned out that the vessel was most likely a Venetian merchant ship that had come to grief between 1580 and 1590, and that a substantial part of its cargo consisted of extraordinarily valuable fritware pottery from the Ottoman city of Iznik. More than 100 examples of these ceramics have been found now and it's a unique discovery - no other such ship has ever been found before. ? Arne Hodalic / eyevine