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. Sultan Ahmet Mosque in Istanbul is also known as the Blue Mosque because of blue tiles surrounding the walls. It was constructed between 1609 and 1616. The is lined with more than 20,000 handmade ?znik style ceramic tiles in more than fifty different tulip designs. The tiles at lower levels are traditional in design, while at gallery level their design becomes flamboyant with representations of flowers, fruit and cypresses.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