In the _annexe_, which is first visited on the upper floor, there are several collections--a magnificent series of old Oriental carpets said to have belonged to Ahmed I., two chairs, of Selim I. and Ahmed I., some exquisite Turkish and Persian pottery of various dates, and some extremely fine glass. In the other room (right, first floor) are cases containing Assyrian and Babylonian cones and Hittite inscriptions, including the famous record of Sennacherib's expedition against Hezekiah. There is also a less interesting collection of Egyptian antiquities, and, of course, several mummies. The ground floor contains the splendid collection of sarcophagi, superior to any in the world. They form an uninterrupted series from the Ionic art to that of the Byzantines. The most ancient are the three sarcophagi of terra-cotta from Clazomene, near Smyrna, which with the two at the Louvre are the only complete monuments of the archaic period. Greek art of the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. is represented by the famous sarcophagi found at Sidon, known as the Satrap, the Mourners, Alexander's and the Lycian. To the same centuries and the third belong a considerable number of sarcophagi. The Greco-Roman style is represented by two sarcophagi which represent the story of Hippolytus. Of the many Byzantine sarcophagi--to which ought certainly to be added those now outside S. Irene--the most beautiful, besides those called after Constantine and S. Helena his mother, is the No. 100 with the monogram of Christ. The most splendid part of the collection is that which was unearthed in Phœnicia and chiefly near Sidon by Hamdy Bey from 1887 onwards. The Satrap--representing an oriental potentate in life and in death--is of Parian marble, and was originally painted, and is in the Ionian style. Close by it was found the beautiful Mourners, an exquisite series of weeping women, which belongs to Attic art. The glorious "sarcophagus of Alexander," which represents the Macedonian fighting with the Persians, and hunting, is alone worth a visit to Constantinople to see. It is the work of a contemporary of Lysippus, fourth century B.C., and is one of the very finest examples we possess of ancient art. There is another sarcophagus which evidently copies the frieze of the Parthenon.