corundum, ruby, sapphire, quality.10, gems

The old Palace of the Sultans of the Ottoman Empire stands on a promontory in the city of Istanbul. It is built high above the Bosphorus with a view across to Asia just over one mile away. Istanbul has been on the trade route between East and West throughout the centuries so that some of the choicest silks, jewels, gold, silver and porcelain reached the city. The Palace is really a series of pavilions built by successive Sultans around inner courtyards, cooled by many fountains and surrounded by high walls. Here the Sultans lived in the hey-day of the Ottoman Empire. Originally in the 15th Century, the Treasury was housed in seven towers guarded by 250 Janissaries. The first four towers contained precious jewels, gold coins were consigned to the fifth, whilst the sixth was filled with silver coins. The seventh was reserved for government documents. Sultan Murat III moved the Treasury to seven large rooms in the Palace; and a record taken in the 18th Century showed that it contained 199,371 jewels. Over the years each Sultan added more to the Treasury and when the last Sultan was deposed in 1919, by Kemal Ataturk, the Palace was turned into a museum, so that the treasures have remained intact.