Hagia Sophia

The area from the Topkani Palace, Hagia Sophia, across the Hippodrome to Blue Mosque, covers only a few hundred feet.  It has been a focal point of western history for centuries.  Traveling around Europe one sees churches and chapels built in honor of one military victory or another, or for deliverance from some terrible clamamity, but Sultanahmet built the Blue Mosque more as propitiation for a loss to the Persians, a blatant attempt to get Allah back on his side.  The 17th Century was hard on the Ottomans -- they started the century being stymied in their attempt to expand eastward, by the Persians, and ended it in a disastrous loss to the Hapsburgs at Vienna, which ended their northward expansion.  They spent the next two hundred years in more or less steady decline, earning them the "Sick Man of Europe" moniker.  

 Their defeat by the Hapsburgs opened the way for attemp ted Hapsburg expansion into the Balkans, and while they were never fully successful, they succeeded in creating enough animosity that Slavic groups organized against them, the most notable being the "Black Hand," the Serbian group which orchestrated the assassination of Mr. and Mrs. Grand Duke Ferdinand of Austria 95 years ago this month, and which of course led to the beginning of World War I two months later.   Had the Ottomans won the battle in Vienna, the Danube might now have an Asian side and a European side, culturally if not physically.

So on to Hagia Sophia, built in the early 6th Century in what was then called Constantinople, seat of the patriarch of the eastern church, what we in the west call the Eastern Orthodox Church after the Great Schism of 1054.   The official name of the church is longer, but most people call it either Hagia Sophia or Santa Sophia, but the Sophia is not a female saint, but comes from the word "widson," so the name means literally "Holy Wisdom."  I wonder just how much holy wisdom it's seen in its 1500 years.

One of the early Christian-era mosaics in a side-entrance hallway.
Sultanahmet Mosque in the backround, from a second-floor window at Hagia Sophia.


The second floor main balcony which opens on three sides to the main level below.  Access to the second floor is via a ramp which switches back and forth through one of the outside piers.  
One of the early mosaics from the Christian era.  The Ottomans covered them up when they turned it into a mosque.  Some are slowly being uncovered.  It is pretty time-consuming, painstaking work.
From the balcony level, looking toward the main entrance. The railings are carved stone.  On one level it is a disappointment to walk in and see the scaffolding erected, but on another level it is good to see the buildings being cared for.  The sheer number of ancient structures in southern Europe is astounding.  Many deteriorate simply because funds aren't available to keep them up.  
A section of the ground floor marble flooring.  The slabs are roughly the size of a sheet of plywood, probably more like 10 feet.  Widths vary.  Cheaper grades of marble were used for flooring, street paving (remember the Dubrovnik photos -- this is not a test!)

and other assorted structural needs.
A one-piece marble urn.  There are two in the back of the church.  They hold water; you can see the sphigots toward the bottom.
This little house is inside the Hagia Sophia wall, and is where the man stayed who calculated the time for prayer.  Five times a day, set on a celestial schedule.
Outside the church, water fountains for foot washing.  And other things, I suppose.  I don't know if it was reserved for foot washing.  At Blue Mosque there were long rows along the courtyard walls, and all I saw were people washing their feet.