Well ladies and gentlemen, you stay home
we bring the sights to you. If you cannot go to places to visit the sights no worries, we bring them to you. Today, we are going to enjoy our privacy in Hagia Sophia all together there is no one else
other than us here this beautiful monument has been standing here for more
than 1500 years such a big deal it is a very important building from many different aspects from the historical point of view from the religious point of view from the architectural point of view from the cultural point of view the Hagia Sophia has always been such a monumental place let's enjoy it together This world famous monument Hagia Sophia was built three times. The first Hagia Sophia was a very simple one was a very small one it was built by Constantine the Great it was his son who completed the
construction probably it was a smaller building with a wooden roof we don't
have much information about the earliest Hagia Sophia but in the early fifth century
the Hagia Sophia was destroyed during some riots in town that's why Theodosius ii
was able to build the second Hagia Sophia second Hagia Sophia didn't live long either but it was larger than the previous one, maybe as large as this one and Theodosius II added a courtyard and atrium in the western end as well during the reign of Justinian in the 6th century because of some riots against the Emperor Justinian in the ancient Hippodrome the people were against him they were protesting against Justinian because he was collecting too much taxes from people and the administration was bad towards people so they were very unhappy and they started protesting against Justinian the protesters started going out of the Hippodrome and it turned out to be an angry mob those people went to the prisons first and they rescued the prisoners from there and together with the prisoners they started destroying everything that they came across among these buildings were the second Hagia Sophia, the Hagia Eirene, parts of the palace and so on they wanted to change the Emperor Justinian was so scared they started making escape plans and he was married to a very wise woman Theodora, the moment Theodora heard about these escape plans she was in shock, although she didn't have the right to talk she went to the Senate meeting and she must have made a speech to the people there, they changed their mind and they decided to stay and they decided to play a game against the protesters, the protesters were said that the emperor would hear them in the ancient Hippodrome so they were invited to go back to the Hippodrome they believed in this, they went to the Hippodrome when they were all inside the armies of Justinian started coming in from all of the gates together with their weapons and they started slaughtering these people inside 30,000 people were killed and after a while the riots were under control again but when Justinian was able to go out of his palace he came here to see the ruins of the Hagia Sophia, he was so disappointed he called his architects and Anthemius and Isidorus and he asked them to make the Hagia Sophia from the beginning but he wanted to Hagia Sophia to be the largest religious shrine ever he didn't give them enough time but he gave them enough men and enough money these two architects started working hardly after about five years they were able to complete the building and Justinian was here proudly for the opening ceremony of the place from then on the Hagia Sophia was used as a church for nine hundred and sixteen years but in the year 1453 this time the Turks captured the city of Constantinople and the first place that the 21-year-old Sultan Mehmet II visited was Hagia Sophia Hagia Sophia was filled with Byzantines inside they were shaking they were afraid they all thought that the Turks would slaughter them all. When the 21-year-old Sultan Mehmet came here he gave an order to his soldiers no damage to the building no harm to people he looked at the building in great admiration and then he said let's pray the next Friday noontime prayer here it was a Tuesday so until the next Friday they had only three days they were going to change the building into a mosque of course they immediately added a wooden minaret in this corner they took away all of the portable religious item from Christianity they covered the floors with carpets and then they built a wooden Mihrap the prayer niche for the Imam and the section for the müezzin and the pulpit and next Friday for the noontime there was this call for the prayer it was already a mosque Mehmet II spoke the greek language he knew what Hagia Sophia meant it's a Greek word, two greek words Hagia Sophia, divine wisdom divine wisdom was one of the attributes of Jesus Christ he didn't even need to change the name of the building it was the Hagia Sophia church before and it became the Hagia Sophia mosque the imperial mosque of Ayasofya [Music] let's look at the plan of the Hagia Sophia first, it consists of a courtyard outside which is also named as the atrium and from the middle of the courtyard you come into the building and right after you enter there is an aisle here horizontally lying aisle which is named as the outer narthex parallel to this over there next to this one is another narthex which is called as the inner narthex from there you go into the main section of the building and the main section of the building was called as Naos it is the nave there's a central nave in the middle with the two side naves on the main nave it's a rectangular building and the dimensions of the building are 70 by 100 meters we are going to look at these one by one [Music] during the ottoman times the Hagia Sophia was made a mosque it was the Imperial mosque it was the number one mosque in the protocol due to this fact it had lots of support from some of the Ottoman Sultans they had the Hagia Sophia restored for a few times one of these major restorations was made during the reign of Sultan Abdülmecid in the middle of the 19th century to Swiss architects two brothers were in Istanbul for the construction of a palace and they were very notable architects so Sultan Abdülmecid heard about their fame and he commissioned them for the restoration of the building they did a wonderful job they did a comprehensive restoration in here during those restorations the Fossati brothers made a gesture for the Sultan with the tiny pieces the leftover pieces from some of the mosaics in here the tesserae pieces mosaic pieces they made a nice Tugra, the signature of the Sultan by using these mosaic pieces in here this has been a beautiful piece take a look [Music] this is the so-called sarcophagus for the Hungarian princess Piroshka with the Hungarian name and the Greek name later became Eirene as you know together with Eirene her husband John Komnenos built the Pantocrator church and one part of the Pantocrator church was the burial place for the Komnenos family this sarcophagus here is believed to have been brought here from the Pantocrator church belonging to Eirene herself. During the hundreds of years when the Hagia Sophia was used as a church the in the nearby building the Patriarchate existed but the meetings of the Patriarchate generally took place in the galleries of the Hagia Sophia and there used to be a religious council which was named as the Synod and some of the important decisions taken in the Synod council were inscribed on some stones like this and somehow those original stones with the inscriptions of the Synod were recycled in the tomb of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent in the Suleymaniye complex during a restoration over there they found out that and later they made a replica of the same stones and they are displaying them in the outer narthex of the Hagia Sophia now. [Music] this door is used as the exit door for the visitors today but at its height, this door was the entrance for the emperors. whenever the Byzantine emperors wanted to come to the Hagia Sophia they came through here look at these beautiful doors these doors were thought to be from the second century BC from the birthplace of Saint Paul the city of Tarsus. Carbon dating shows that these doors do not go back to the second century BC they date back to the 1st century AD made out of cedar of Lebanon and the other decorative parts were added in the 9th century to these beautiful doors after entering into the Hagia Sophia through the beautiful doors the emperors would come across with a beautiful 10th century mosaic panel in this mosaic we see infant Jesus Christ together with the Virgin Mary and the initials of the Virgin Mary are inscribed there and she is the mother of God Theotokos and on the two sides there are two more figures the one on the left is Justinian the founder of the church he is the 6th century prominent Byzantine Emperor and he is offering his church to Jesus and on the right hand side that is Constantine the founder of the city the Emperor who announced this city to be the new capital for the Roman Empire and he gave his name to the city and he is offering his city to Jesus Christ so this is the offering scene from the 10th century AD [Music] with the construction technique of the Hagia Sophia we can make a generalization like this; on the floors they used marble only. On the walls instead of covering the walls with a plaster and painting it over they used marble panels and on the ceilings they used the mosaics the Byzantines were experts of marble for the construction of Hagia Sophia they brought different quality different color marble from different sources from all over the Empire this shows the power of the Empire. The Byzantines sliced the marble in thicknesses like two three centimetres and they didn't inlay them just ordinarily they tried to bookmatch the patterns on the marble see the patterns are bookmatching with each other giving a symmetrical look and they are also framed all around and they look like painting pieces this is beautiful [Music] this is the middle point of the inner narthex and the monumental gate right in the middle was the Imperial gate the Emperors when they entered into the building through the beautiful door they came up until here and from here they went into the Naos. above the main entrance is a beautiful mosaic and you see Jesus is sitting in a throne there there is something interesting in the Greek Orthodox Church generally speaking Greek Orthodox people do not prefer showing Jesus while he is suffering that's why we don't see many crucifixion scenes in the Greek Orthodox churches instead they prefer showing Jesus like a victorious Emperor this is what it is now Jesus is shown like the Pantocreator the creator of the universe pantocrator' he is wearing the costumes of an emperor he's sitting in a beautifully decorated throne he is doing the gesture of blessing with his right hand and he is holding the holy book in his left hand and on the book it says I am the light so on the 2 sides of Jesus there are two medallions the one on the left is the Virgin Mary and the other one on the right is the Archangel Gabriel he is holding his staff but very interestingly there is one more man kneeling down in front of Jesus he is thought to be Leo VI Leo VI was an emperor from the ninth century and he was a notable Byzantine Emperor he is the author of two important books one of which was the Basilica and the other was the Tactica. the first one was like a law book and the other one was a war book he was not very successful from the military point of view but he was adored to be a prominent Emperor by his followers and he was very unlucky with his private life he had to marry four times until he had a son each time he remarried the church was against it but he did remarry. only in the fourth marriage he was able to have a son but the church did not want to baptize the boy unless he would divorce so he divorced the boy was baptized and then he remarried and to ask for forgiveness from God he made a big donation to the church and he asked the mosaic artist to make a mosaic panel of himself while kneeling down in front of Jesus while begging so Jesus is doing the gesture of blessing so he is forgiven [Music] this is the Imperial gate just like the Byzantine emperors did I'm going to enter into the main section the Naos of the church through the Imperial gate look at these beautiful gigantic size wooden doors it would be impossible to open and close these doors often it wouldn't be easy to move them but how did they close the doors you see the hooks the hooks were used to hang some heavy curtains so curtains were functioning like doors in here see how worn the marble is here now this is the Naos, look who I'm going to introduce you to this is one of the owners of Hagia Sophia this is Glee the famous cat of Hagia Sophia Glee this was the cat which once upon a time when Mr. Obama visited the Hagia Sophia this cat was caressed by
him [Music] he's the proud owner of this place this is not the first church which was built with a dome there were buildings with domes from before but the two architects of this building Anthemius and Isidorus were trying such a big dome for the first time ever and they thought they would be able to hold this dome up here but they were mistaken. 20 years after the construction was completed with an earthquake the dome fell down the dome had to be rebuilt the earlier dome was shallow the second time that they built the dome they made it higher than the previous one like six-seven meters higher than the earlier one so that it would be more durable you know 55.60 meters meters would be equal to approximately a 17-story building in other words a 17-floor apartment building would fit underneath here the Statue of Liberty from New York will fit in here. How would you cover the top of a rectangular building with a dome? impossible that's why the architects had to add two more half domes in the two sides of the main dome so that these one big dome and two half domes would cover the top of the rectangle this is the architectural style the dome is still the weakest part of the building there were some other damages throughout the centuries but they always restored starting from the 9th century continuing until the 19th century either by the Byzantines or the Ottomans in order to strengthen the durability of the dome some additional buttresses from the four sides of the buildings were added these buttresses were not built at the same time some were built by the Byzantines and some others were built by the Ottomans so they don't look alike they are in different sizes and in different shapes some of them are flying buttresses they are supporting the building with a connection of an arch but the others are massive the others are bulk thanks to these buttresses that the dome is still standing on top of the building [Music] the whole floor of Hagia Sophia is covered with gigantic size marble panels but these marble panels have not been put here ordinarily or randomly the patterns on the marble panels are bookmatching with each other with this Skutlosis technique, four marble panels are forming a medallion in here while the other four marble panels are forming a medallion there and it continues in all directions all around what happens here is that when we come here to visit the Hagia Sophia we are taken away with the general view of the place and as a result we most of the times neglect looking at the floor that's why I would like to draw your attention to the beautiful marble floor and the patterns bookmatching with each other on the floor [Music] As a 1500-year-old building Hagia Sophia has always required big restorations so restoration is an essential part of Hagia Sophia that's why almost all the time there has been some scaffolding around so
I cannot show you the other part of the scaffolding now but I have some archive videos so let me show you the parts without the scaffolding as well Hagia Sophia is such an important Byzantine monument but on the other hand I have to add it is not a typical Byzantine work. What does that mean? It means the Byzantine architecture did not follow the line of Hagia Sophia it is a late
Roman architecture. [Music] there is a special section here as you see we see some special decorations on the floor this kind of floor covering is called as opus sectile or opus sectile meaning cut work so these are different color stones cut in geometric forms and inlaid to form a general motif on the floor obviously this place was meant to be a special place it is also called as Omphalion we understand that at least for
a while this place was used for the coronation ceremonies of the emperors they used 107 columns in here 40 of these columns are in this floor and 67 are up in the galleries these are the columns that hold up the building especially the Capitals are very beautiful it is like lacework imagine one block of marble by using some drilling techniques they are making some little holes and it looks like lacework and actually they carve achantus leaves there there are two scrolls on the two sides together with the initials of the emperor Justinian and his wife Theodora right in the middle these are typical Byzantine style capitals this is the east and in the eastern end there is a big apse there's a part of the church which is going out of the building making a curve towards outside of the building and that was the apse of the building in the Greek Orthodox Church in front of the apse is the wall of the icons iconostasis is another name for that and there are doors on it and the section behind the wall of icons is called as the Bema that is the holy section, preparations for the rituals are all made here common people cannot go there common people can stay here in the Naos and the two narthexes at the entrance were the sections in which the non-baptized people were permitted to enter maximum, not any farther so there's a great deal of hierarchy in the Orthodox Church. In the four corners of the dome there are four pendentives and on each pendentive there is a six winged angel these angels are the guardians of the throne of God and they are named as the Seraphim angels and in the Ottoman times the faces in the middle were all covered only recently during the restoration work one of the faces was open when we came here one day after so many years of no face in the angel suddenly we noticed that the angel was looking at us, it was such a great surprise for us the two angels in the Western pendentives are replicas originally they were built as mosaics but not anymore. In the dome today we see some calligraphy this calligraphy is from the nineteenth century but before the Turkish period obviously in the center of the main dome at least there should have been a cross there or maybe the face of Jesus as well it was made with mosaics. The notable calligraphy artist Mustafa Izzet Efendi did this calligraphy there and those are the verses from the Holy Quran these verses are about light. In the side nave there, there is another additional building from the Muslim period it's a library. The library was added here in the early 18th century it was built by Sultan Mahmud I. He was one of the Ottoman Sultans who had great interest in books that's why he is known to be the Ottoman Sultan who built the maximum number of libraries all around the Ottoman Empire he was also an artist of seals as a hobby he was making seals Sultan Mahmud I was selling these seals and with the money that he was earning in a hidden way without using his name he was giving this money to the poor people he was making donations with that the library here had thousands of books and the interior of the library is covered with beautiful tiles from Iznik and the books in here were all sent to the Sulemaniye Library the original lighting of the Byzantine period was much above these lights so in other words these lights are from the Turkish period generally speaking we can say that the lighting was more celestial in the Byzantine times and in the Ottoman times the lights were brought down to more humanitarian levels we know that in the Byzantine times there were approximately 100 people who were in charge of the lights only. these lights either in the Byzantine period or the Ottoman times were always oil candles you see these glass cases they would put some water in it first and then some drops of olive oil with a wick and they would burn them by hand one by one when the olive oil ran out the light went off [Music] while converting the Hagia Sophia into a mosque there were a few technical problems of course one of these problems was about the direction of the building as a general rule Greek Orthodox churches face the east so the main apse of the church would be in the direction of the east it wouldn't be good for a Muslim mosque because Muslim mosques should face the direction of Mecca Kaaba the Mecca direction from Istanbul is in the southeast so how did they solve this problem? they added the special prayer niche for the Imam at the bottom of the main apps but not in the center it is off-centered to face the Mecca direction the other technical problem is about the mosaics the figures human figures in the mosaics in the first few centuries after converting the churches into mosques Ottomans whitewashed the faces in the mosaics or the frescoes this helped but it required a lot of redoing from the 18th century onwards we notice that instead of painting them frequently they developed a special coat of plaster to cover the whole mosaic in a way the mosaics were even preserved better than ever as if they knew that one day this building would be converted into a museum they preserved mosaics so it helped the other elements that we would need to add in a mosque after converting a church into a mosque would be the pulpit for the Imam on Fridays the Imam would give his sermon from there the official sermon on behalf of the Sultan and then go back to his mihrab, the prayer niche for the Imam and he would resume the prayer from there and in every mosque we also have a muezzin, it is the name of the person who used to climb up the minaret and call people to prayer and come here take a special seat in here like the Muezzin's Lodge in here and he would assist the Imam during the prayer and a little farther up there just next to the main apse is the additional Royal Box Royal Box means this is the place where the Ottoman Sultans would pray when an ottoman sultan picked this mosque to pray he would come to the lodge special pavilion which would be just outside he would take a rest there for a while with a connection from inside he would come in the Royal Box and pray from there. Ottoman Empire is one of the longest-lasting empires in history 624 years altogether and there were totally thirty-six Ottoman Sultans Ottoman Sultans had wonderful education some of them were writers some of them were warriors some of them were sportsman and some of them were artists here in the apse area this is like an exhibition for the artwork of the Ottoman Sultans those Ottoman Sultans who wrote calligraphy the artwork is exhibited in here [Music] in the two corners of Hagia Sophia we have two of these marble urns gigantic size imagine one block of marble like this shaped like an urn from outside and it is hollowed out inside and these date back to the Hellenistic period Hellenistic period means the third century the second century BC in the Aegean region of Turkey there is a Hellenistic Kingdom called as the Kingdom of Pergamum and these marble urns were brought here from Pergamum only in the second half of the sixteenth century and after bringing them in Istanbul they didn't know first where to use them and later they decided to put them in the two corners of the Hagia Sophia with a tap in here and in the special days in Islam they would put some sherbet a fruit drink in it and they would deliver it to people as refreshment [Music] legend has it that in the times when Justinian was pushing the architects to finish the building as quickly as possible the workers were working around the clock with no interruption in shifts one day some of the workers would like to go for a lunch break and they asked the son of the architect to guard the tools in here they tell the boy not to leave anywhere then an angel comes here and sees the boy and he says hey what are you doing here he says I'm guarding the tools. Where are the workers? At lunch break. He says go and get them. I can't I have to stay here he says don't worry I do the guarding you bring them so the boy goes to his father and tells him the story and the father says is the angel still there yes he is there okay let him stay there he will protect the building so from then on no one comes back here and the angel is kept here so that is the angel that makes the wishes of people today there is a wish hole in here you make a wish and then you put your thumb inside and without moving the feet without taking the thumb out you need to make a full circle like 360 degrees and also because of the veins in the marble there is sometimes humidity through the veins that's why sometimes your finger is going to get humid or wet as well if you can manage all these your wish comes true [Music] we are now up in the gallery this part of the Hagia Sophia was used for women both in the Byzantine and Ottoman times this special place here was the seat for the Empress but there was also another time in which the whole royal family had their rituals had their practices in the right wing of the galleries there as well as a general rule as I mentioned earlier the ceilings were covered with mosaics but in some parts of the galleries the mosaics have not survived to our day that's why they have been plastered over and they painted the plaster in frescoes in the look of the original mosaics take a look at the inner part of the arch up here you can still see the mosaics there those are the original mosaics in between these columns there's a tie beam and that is an original 6th century wooden tie beam keeping its original look still there [Music] southern gallery at the entrance to the southern gallery there is a beautiful marble door these doors carved in the block marble behind this beautiful door was the section in which the royal family had their rituals in special days or this was also used for the meetings of the Synod [Music] the largest mosaic panel in the Hagia Sophia is a 13th century mosaic art as I mentioned earlier all of the ceilings and some of the walls were covered with mosaics in the mosaic art I have to let you know they never use any paint or any brushes it's only stones green is from the green stone red is from the red stone only the yellow in the mosaic is obtained with gold leaves together with glass they cut the glass and the stones in cubic forms and each piece is called as tessarea and by fixing these tiny pieces of tessarea next to each other with a glue type of mortar they obtain the picture. the finer the tesserae pieces are the higher density we would have in the picture this is how it goes in this 13th century mosaic we have the famous Deisis scene the Deisis is a Greek word and it means begging this is actually a close-up from the Judgment Day Judgment Day is filled with the Apostles and everyone else and in the middle in the Judgment Day is Jesus he is the judge and he is going to decide whether or not people will go to heaven or hell so the Greek Orthodox people generally take these three people from the Judgment Day and they name it as the Deisis and we see this scene in many Greek Orthodox churches very frequently and on one side it is St. John the Baptist and on the other side it is the Virgin Mary. Both the Virgin Mary and Saint John the Baptist are begging Jesus to forgive humankind that's why it is called as Deisis, begging. the mosaic artist by using these tiny pieces of tesserae is able to reflect the feeling of people in the picture such a big deal you can look at the face of the Virgin Mary and you can feel how sad she is because some people have to go to hell on the other hand how proud she is with her son [Music] this is the extension of the southern gallery here is the eastern wall a little further up from here is the main apse and in the two sides of this window there are two beautiful mosaic panels these are the Emperor and the Empress the Emperor and the Empress making donations to the church the special feature about these two mosaic panels is that except for Jesus and the Virgin Mary the faces of the Emperor and the Empresses are the true faces just like a photograph on this side it is John Komnenos from the 12th century who got married with the Hungarian Princess Piroshka and in order to have a better relation between the two states they were having some intermarriages and Piroshka was the princess from Hungary and she became the wife of John Komnenos and after she came to this culture she got the Greek name Eirene and in the Greek language Eirene means peace so she came here to bring peace and she is depicted so beautifully in the mosaic she has red hair and she has red frickles on her cheeks and she is beautiful but on the other hand the mosaic artist has drawn her like a foreigner she does not belong to this culture as if the artist wanted to emphasize this fact they are making donations to the church and they wanted everyone know about this that's why at a very visible place they put their mosaic in here after 800 years we are still able to see how generous they were it is the same thing in here it is Zoe and her husband in both mosaics there is Jesus in the middle or infant Jesus in the middle together with the Virgin Mary so the emperor is holding a money bag it is the same in both of the mosaics and the Empress is holding some documents so these symbolize their donation to the church this one is very interesting this is Zoe. Zoe is the daughter of Constantine from the end of the ninth century and she lived through the 10th century as well up until the age of 50 she didn't marry and her father was getting old and she didn't have any other brothers she was one of the three daughters that's why her father asked her to marry one of the generals from the army and that was Romanos. she obeyed the father and she got married with Romanos and when the father passed away they both ascended to the throne and she became the Empress and Romanos became the Emperor and then they made some donation to the church and they put their mosaic in here but she was already above 50 and she didn't have any child and it was impossible for her to get any children afterwards so she lost her interest in their marriage that's why she found a worker a good-looking worker named Michael in the palace and she started flirting with him and little by little the two were poisoning the husband after a while Romanos passed away and on the day that he passed away Zoe got married with Michael and they got ascended to the throne Michael became the new emperor so this time they asked the mosaic artist to carve the face of the former husband and the artist put the new face of the new husband but Michael knowing all what she did to the previous husbands he had to be careful with Zoe that's why he, in a way, pacified Zoe she was put in the harem section of the palace and she didn't have freedom to go out Michael was not a very healthy man after a short while he passed away and then his nephew ascended to the throne and Zoe after this was able to start a riot in the town supporting herself and after that she was able to get out of the harem section and she ascended to the throne together with her sister later she found one of the old boyfriends from her past and that was Monamachus she got married with Monamachus and Monamachus became the Emperor and she was the Empress so Monamachus was the third husband and that's why they had to put the face of the third husband in the mosaic in here at the age of 70 something she passed away. [Music] because the Hagia Sophia is a museum today we have artifacts from the Christian times we have artifacts from the Muslim times altogether there are some interesting and pleasant occurrences within this perspective take a look here in this calligraphy panel on the right it is the name of God Allah on the left hand side that is the name of the prophet Prophet Muhammad is written in Arabic calligraphy and a little behind above the main apse you are going to see the mosaic panel together with the Virgin Mary and infant Jesus Christ where else in the world will you be able to see such a thing together? Allah, Muhammad, the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ are all in the same picture. It is a very fine example for coexistence. [Music] this is the baptistry this marble basin here was used for baptistry and it is the largest basin ever in the whole city of Istanbul it is thought that this may be even older than the Hagia Sophia itself [Music] The third Hagia Sophia was built on top of the previous one at a lower level down below from here we can see the remaining parts from the atrium from the courtyard of the second Hagia Sophia see these are the bases for a row of columns there and behind that was the colonnade, the sheltered walkway of the courtyard and you can also see the freezes with sheep on them [Music] this is a beautiful reconstruction drawing of the gate that opens into the main section of the Hagia Sophia from its courtyard but this is from the second Hagia Sophia. you see there is a pediment here with an arch at the bottom and then rows or columns and the colonnades and the parts of these are still visible right next to the building and all the pieces around here were the pieces from here and look at the size of these marble pieces it gives us an idea about the magnitude of the second Hagia Sophia. second Hagia Sophia was almost as large as the current one [Music]
