July 8th, 2007 by Shenron
The Hagia Sophia is a former mosque that is now a museum in Istanbul Turkey, and it is famous for its amazingly well constructed dome. Originally in the fifth century AD the Byzantine Emperor ordered its construction on the site of where two previous churches had been. The church contained many relics and a 50 foot silver iconostasis. A millennia later the Ottoman Turks conquered Constantinople and the church was converted to being a mosque, and remained so until the 1930s, after the Ottoman Empire had fallen. The Hagia Sophia suffered from many disasters, including an earthquake in the 10th century, which forced repairs to its dome, and it was also ransacked with the fourth crusade. It survived by constant restorations afterwards, along with additional buttresses, but again it was fixed. It is the best surviving structure created during the height of the Byzantine Empire, and one of the longest lived buildings, surviving many encounters with possible destruction.
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Posted in 7 Wonders of the Middle Ages, The 21 Finalists | | 0 Comments
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