Hagia Sofia

We started in the Hagia Sofia our first full day here. It is one of the oldest churches in the world. It was turned into a Mosque in 1453 when the Ottomans captured Constantinople and turned it into Istanbul.

It is simply falling apart. But it was started in something like 330 AD, so that should not be too much of a surprise.

Don't blame the Ottomans for all its problems, either. In 1204 the Crusaders (from the 4th Crusade) captured and sacked Constantinople. And they were Christians.

They hauled off all sorts of treasure (from the four horsed that were placed atop St Marks in Venice to the Crown of Thorns and many pieces of the True Cross. But mostly it was gold and jewels)


Here is Doreen around some of the ruins on the grounds of the Hagia Sofia. It disturbed her greatly that no care was being taken with these things. People were sitting on the, touching them, using them for tables. And as you will see in a future photo, a cleaning woman even used one to lean her mop us against when she washed it. Oh well, they lasted almost 2,000 years. They can take a little water.




This is a font inside the Hagia Sofia. It is carved out of one piece of marble


This ceiling still has much of the mosaic tile work on it. They say that in the 19th century you could hear the tiles falling from the ceiling constantly.


The roundels are scripts of the Koran. The place is no longer a Mosque, just a museum,\.