Handicrafts

Restoration and excavation work has resumed at the Saint Simon Monastery in southern Turkey after a pause of 60 years, and the site will host tourists once it is completed.

The monastery, located in Hatay province, is believed to have been built in the 6th century by Saint Simon.

Retired Mehmet Keleş, who has been working voluntarily in the excavations of the Holy Apostles Church that he found in his garden in the eastern province of Hatay's Arsuz district, is happy to contribute his bit for bringing the cultural heritage to light.

Work is underway to uncover a colossal mosaic, which was found during an illegal excavation in the Lapseki district of the northwestern province of Çanakkale in May and evaluated as a 1,500-year-old artifact. The 120-square-meter mosaic dates back to the late Roman and early Byzantine periods.

A street in Şanlıurfa, where historical stone houses have been restored and turned into workshops, has become a popular spot for local and foreign tourists visiting the historical southeastern city. The workshops on mosaic, wood carving and silver processing attract the attention of visitors in the street where colorful images emerge.

After nine years of hard archaeological work, visitors to southern Turkey will soon be able to see a huge intact mosaic some 1,300 years old with their own eyes.       

The mosaics in the ancient city of Xanthos in the southern province of Antalya's Kaş district, are now unprotected. The magnificent mosaics had a water-resistant geotextile barrier during the time of the former president of excavations. But as the barrier eroded, the mosaics are now exposed to the elements of nature.

From cats and dogs to singing insects and drunken parrots, the ancient Greeks and Romans shared a deep and intimate connection with the animal kingdom.

A Cyprus Orthodox Church official says a rare, 1.500 year-old mosaic depicting Saint Mark has joined other repatriated pieces that were looted from the ethnically split island nation's breakaway north.

Together the pieces will create a reproduction of an apse that adorned a 6th century church in island's north.

The communications minister of Cyprus says a rare 6th-century portrait mosaic of St. Mark which was looted from an Orthodox Christian church more than four decades ago has returned intact to the Mediterranean island nation.

When Abid Ali risked his life in a rubber dinghy in 2015 as he fled Pakistan for Europe, he didn't think that three years later he would be making bags, backpacks and sneakers out of similar boats in a small workshop in Berlin.