Builders sought divine protection
Towering over Istanbul’s historic peninsula, the dome of the Hagia Sophia, once the world’s biggest building, has been the jewel of the city for 1500 years. The workers who built it, without modern technology or safety precautions, to its height of 56 metres would have needed strong nerves – and graffiti recently discovered by archaeologists suggests that they also put their faith in God.
Inscriptions written in Greek on walls that have been studied by a British-Czech team translate roughly as ‘‘Lord preserve me’’.
Ken Dark, professor of archaeology at Reading University, who is leading the team, said the find pointed to some surprising conclusions.
‘‘ These inscriptions were made by the workmen – they are not formal inscriptions. Someone working high up above the ground in a dangerous place has scratched them into the brick,’’ Dark said.
‘‘It says two things that have never been previously shown: that the workmen building Hagia Sophia were Christians, and literate.’’
The study is part of a larger survey of Hagia Sophia’s environment undertaken by the team.
The survey has found evidence of a patriarchal palace that was southwest of the building, and what was probably a huge baptistery to the north. The north and south vestibules, previously thought to have been added during the Ottoman era, are now believed to have been part of the original Byzantine structure.
‘‘People have always looked at the building itself, but not its surroundings. The structures we have found were known about, but not in any detail,’’ Dark said.
Separately, Turkish divers are exploring a network of flooded tunnels underneath the building that stretch for more than 1 kilometre and may have been used as cisterns or burial chambers.
Above ground, a battle for Hagia Sophia’s soul has been fought almost since it was built.
In 1204 it was converted into a Catholic cathedral, before being turned back into an Orthodox Church site in 1261. In 1453, the Ottomans captured the city and converted it into the imperial mosque.
It remained so until 1934, when Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the secular Turkish republic, deconsecrated the site and turned it into a museum.
It was Turkey’s most-visited tourist site, attracting 3 million visitors each year, until the courts overturned Ataturk’s decision and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan converted it back into a mosque by decree in July.
Erdogan has since regularly visited the Hagia Sophia to perform Friday prayers, and the mosaics of the Christian Virgin Mary and Archangel Gabriel have been covered with curtains.
The ground on which Istanbul stands has been inhabited for at least 2500 years, and modern infrastructure work regularly turns up ancient artefacts. Most recently, the renovation of a train line on the Asian side of the city recovered relics of what is believed to have been a Byzantine coastal settlement.
In some cases, the remnants of older buildings have been incorporated into newer ones. One of Dark’s previous surveys revealed what is likely to be a fragment of the walls of the Byzantine Church of the Holy Apostles, the burial place of emperors including Constantine and Justinian.