Istanbul
PHOTOGRAPHY BY SARAH MAWDSLEY
Istanbul
PHOTOGRAPHY BY SARAH MAWDSLEY
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images copyright © Sarah Mawdsley 2009 All Rights Reserved 1
Hagia Sophia Hagia Sophia, the "Church of Holy Wisdom", is a former patriarchal basilica, later a mosque and now a museum in Istanbul. For almost a thousand years this was the largest cathedral in the world. The current building was constructed between 532 and 537 AD, on the orders of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian. In 1453, Constantinople was conquered by the Ottoman Turks and Sultan Mehmed II ordered the building to be converted into a mosque. The Islamic features were added over the course of its history under the Ottomans. It remained a mosque until 1935 when it was converted into a museum.
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Yerebatan Sanici - Basilica Cistern Built by the Emperor Justinian at the same time as the Haghia Sophia, it was forgotten for centuries and only rediscovered in 1545. It is a tremendous feat of engineering, with brick vaults support on 336 columns spaced at 4 metre intervals. Prior to it's restoration in the mid-1980's the cistern could only be reached by boat.Â
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Church of St Saviour in Chora The first church on this site was built in 4th Century as part of a monastery complex outside the city walls of Constantinople. In Chora, part of its name, means "in the country" in Greek. The present building dates from the 11th Century. The interior was restored and richly decorated with mosaics and frescoes in the early 14th Century. When the church was convereted into a mosque in the 16th Century, the Byzantine mosaics were covered in plaster. This protected them for several centuries. They were first uncovered in the 19th Century, but the government ordered that those in the prayer hall section of the mosque be re-covered. The mosaics were uncovered for good during World War II and the church turned mosque became a secular museum in 1947.
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Sultan Ahmed Mosque - The Blue Mosque The National Mosque of Turkey, built between 1609 and 1616 during the rule of Ahmed I, it was the last of Istanbul's magnificent imperial mosques. The Sultan Ahmed Mosque was built with six minarets. When the plans were revealed the Sultan was criticised, as this was the same number as at the mosque in Mecca. He overcame the problem by paying for a seventh minaret at the Mecca mosque.
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The Bazaar
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Up the Bosphorus
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In and Around Istanbul
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