Photo of the Day 204

Byzantine Coin, Sinop, Turkey, 2001

Photograph by Randy Olson

Explorers pulled this ancient Byzantine coin from a Black Sea wreck near Sinop, Turkey. Millennia ago, the Black Sea was a freshwater lake. When the last ice age waned some 12,000 years ago, salt water from the Mediterranean breached the Bosporus Valley, transforming the Black Sea into its current state—a toxic, brackish, oxygen-deficient pool, perfect for preserving ancient wrecks.

(Photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Deep Black Sea," May 2001, National Geographic magazine)

Photo of the Day 179

Blue Mosque, Istanbul, Turkey, 1998

Photograph by Steve McCurry

Rendered blue in this photograph by reflected light from the sky above and the Bosporus Strait below, Istanbul's Blue Mosque actually got its name from the tile covering its interior. Built for Sultan Ahmet I in the early 1600s, the Ottoman mosque was the first, aside from Mecca's Kaaba shrine, with six minarets instead of the usual four.

(Photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "City at the Crossroads," March/April 1998, National Geographic Traveler magazine)

Photo of the Day 152

Ruins of Nemrud Dagh, Turkey, 2000

Photograph by Reza

The sun sets on the first-century ruins of Nemrud Dagh, Turkey, millennia after it set on the ancient kingdom itself. Built by King Antiochus I in southeastern Turkey, the kingdom is one of the best preserved but least known ruins of the Late Hellenistic period. Its monuments are a story in stone depicting the king, his family and ancestors, and their interaction with the gods.

(Photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Wrath of the Gods: Centuries of Upheaval Along the Anatolian Fault," July 2000, National Geographic magazine)