Building stones of the Haghia Sophia

The Haghia Sophia (or “Ayasophia”) is an astounding building in old town Istanbul. It is an ancient cathedral turned mosque turned museum. Through all these incarnations, the Hagia Sophia has retained some features and had other ones added on: it is a palimpsest of architecture, symbology, and history. Walking through its soaring main chamber, or side passages and alcoves, visitors like me stand with necks bent and mouths agape. It is an unparalleled location for peeling back the layers of time.

Built in 532 CE by the Emperor Justinian, the cathedral rose on the same spot where two earlier churches had stood, the first of which was built in 360 CE. The name “Haghia Sophia” comes from the Greek for “holy wisdom.” For more than a thousand years, it served as the principal church of the Byzantine Empire. It was the world’s largest cathedral for thousands of years. The minarets were tacked on in 1453, after Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Empire:

There’s a gazillion aspects of this building to discuss, but today I’d just like to share some images of the different building stones seen in and around the Haghia Sophia. To start with, here’s a “Verde Antique” (serpentenite breccia) sarcophagus outside the building:

The floor stones in an interior hallway, worn smooth and shiny by millennia of human shuffling:

And a bunch of shots of stones used in the interior walls …

Granite (verging on unakite?):

Conglomerate:

Rhyolite porphyry:

Rhyolite porphyry with xenoliths (also used to construct a sarcophagus outside):

Marble gneiss:

Darker granitoid:

There are also some structurally interesting rocks, like this red and white marble breccia that shows pressure solution. Notice the sutured boundaries of the white grains, and their pronounced long axes, 90° to that maximum pressure direction.

Kind of reminds you of the Purgatory Conglomerate, right? (Me too.)

My favorite rock there is this lurid, gory red/white/black marble gneiss, as it displays ptygmatic folding (elsewhere it is also boudinaged):

I wish I had more photos of this stuff. It’s great. It reminds me of guts!

Here it is in a typical display (pardon the blurriness of the photo): they “fillet” the rock and spread it open in the manner of a Rorschach blot. This produces an attractive symmetrical design, with minimal artistic effort:

Another nice “butterfly” spread, this one of folded marble gneiss:

Another one:

Look close at this one. Note the little gray crosses in there? Let’s zoom in…

Here’s one closer-up:

These are ancient Christian crosses, or rather, the holes where ancient Christian crosses were once mounted on the wall. When the Haghia Sophia was converted to a mosque in 1453, these Christian symbols were removed, and the holes cemented over to obliterate traces of the old religion. Here’s another one, where the cement has fallen away:

Along similar lines, here’s some Arabic script carved into the railing of the second floor, marring a lovely marble breccia:

Stuff like this just floors me. I mean, think about all the different people to lean on this railing over the past 1500 years. The Haghia Sophia’s history is so deep, with so many distinct overlapping layers. The mind reels…

A fantastic concentration of building stones may be found at the “Coronation” spot on the main floor of the building, where Byzantine kings were crowned:

After several pleasant hours touring the Haghia Sophia, we got lunch at a great cafe nearby. Lily got lentil soup:

…and I got an amazing pide, the Turkish style of “pizza”:

Delicious rocks followed by delicious repast! Can’t complain…

The Blue Mosque

In Istanbul over the summer, Lily and I checked out the “Blue Mosque,” named for the predominant color of the mosaic tiles in its interior. It’s more formally know as “Sultan Ahmed Mosque,” named for the sultan who commissioned its construction in 1609. It is an elegant building:

I loved the “pile of bubbles” effect of the multiple domes, and then the skyward piercing forms of the minarets.

It also cuts an impressive silhouette at night:

The mosque is open to the public, including tourists. To visit it, you are asked to remove your shoes. Women are asked to cover their hair. Here’s Lily in the appropriate garb:

I was shocked to see how many tourists completely ignored this request, whether out of contempt for the fact that Islam treats men and women differently, or out of sheer cluelessness. I’m no fuddy-duddy, but it seems to me that when you’re visiting a house of worship, you should follow the requests of the host faith.

Once inside, we got a look at the tiles for which the place is named:

There were some interesting uses of building stones. Consider this arch, made of alternating blocks of conglomerate and marble gneiss:

The ceiling of the Blue Mosque soars high above, decorated with more tiles:

An ugly addition to this elegant architecture is a rack of lights, loftily called a “chandelier,” suspended on long cables. I thought this modern tack-on was rather tacky, but I guess it makes prayer easier in the dark hours:

The ceiling is held up by four enormous pillars; many architectural critics find these ungainly and obtrusive:

After our visit, we went to get some traditional Turkish tea at a little place overlooking the Bosphorus. The tea is very sweet, but comes with extra sugar cubes regardless:

Here’s the view of the Bosphorus, the straight separating European Istanbul from Asian Istanbul. You’re looking north in this photo, with Europe on the left, and Asia on the right:

Follow directions!

This recycling collection can in Istanbul amused me:

Traffic along Kennedy Boulevard, Istanbul

Another animated GIF, this one showing the ancient defensive walls that bound old town Istanbul (which is old town Constantinople, which is old town Byzantium), now ringed by a freeway and then the rip-rap-covered shore of the Bosphorus:

There’s a paved walking path between the freeway and the shore; that’s where I was standing to take these photos. Here’s about where the photos that make up this GIF were taken.

Exactly how old these walls are is unknown to me. There have been defensive walls at this site for 2800 years, but they have also been rebuilt and refortified (and blasted and repaired) many times since then. These may date to the extensive wall-building period under the Emperor Theodosius in the early 400′s CE.

The animated GIF conveys a little bit, I think, of what’s so charming about Turkey: the palimpsest of history. Modern drives past ancient. More to come on this theme in the months ahead as I continue to debrief my Turkey trip!

What’soup?

Check out this selection of fine soups, as displayed at the front of a restaurant (that we bypassed) in Pamukkale, Turkey:

Close-ups that may be easier to read:

Bon Appétit!

Turkey update

Hey there folks,

Long tıme no blog. I am enjoyıng Turkey. We spent several cool days ın Istanbul, checkıng out the awesome buıldıngs and twısty streets and great food there. Took a boat tour up the Bosphorus, walked across the Golden Horn. The Haghıa Sophıa ıs amazıng… a Chrıstıan cathedral datıng to Emporer Justınıan, then retrofıtted to be a Muslım mosque after the fall of Constantınople ın 1453 to Sultan Mehmet II, and now a museum as decreed by the man who made Turkey a modern, semı-secular natıon, Attaturk. Pretty amazıng stuff, and lots of cool buıldıng stones employed ın ıts hıstory-soaked foundatıons. I also really enjoyed walkıng through the Tokapı Palace and eatıng fısh sandwıches on the docks of the Golden Horn. We checked out the Roman ruıns at Ephesus, and then journeyed to Pammukkale, a travertıne-deposıtıng hot sprıngs where I am wrıtıng thıs brıef blog post. Tonıght we take an overnıght bus to Cappadoccıa, a trıppy landscape of eroded tuff deposıts. More later (wıth pıctures! I’ve been takıng so many pıctures!) when I get the chance to download them from the camera and upload them to the blog.

Hope all ıs well; dıd I mıss anythıng whıle I’ve been unplugged?

-Callan

The routine

It’s that time of year for me… summer’s here, and I’m winding up my duties at NOVA in preparation for some travels. We leave Sunday night for two weeks in Turkey, followed by my regional field geology course in Montana (also two weeks), followed by some family time and mountain climbing in New Hampshire (three weeks), including hiking the Presidential Range.

This summer, as I have done for the past several summers, I’ll be subletting my home while I’m gone. Among the many disadvantages of living in DC (high taxes, high crime, lots of noise, all those politicians), this is a big advantage: you can sublet your apartment soooooo easily. It’s a cinch! The city’s government and nonprofit sectors draw in swarms of interns every summer, and I’ve been very fortunate to find great subletters via Craigslist to come pay my rent/mortgage and take care of my cat while I’m away.

The first summer I did this was the most extreme: I was gone for three months in 2006 on a road trip up to Alaska and back; but since then I’ve subletted for at least two months each summer, mainly while I was out west. The 2010 summer is the shortest sublet I’ve so far had: a mere seven weeks. Still, the routine each summer is roughly the same: stock up on cat food and litter, pack up my clothes and store them somewhere (mom’s attic; my office at NOVA), clean the place up, and then clear the heck out. The packing has been more complicated this year since I’m essentially packing for three trips with overlapping gear needs all at once. But it’s a nice annual tradition: right about the time that DC gets to be sweltering hot and humid, I can decamp for exotic locales and cooler climes. I feel very lucky not only to travel like this, but also to have my home and cat cared for in my absence, and bring in cash to pay the mortgage, too. It’s a sweet deal.

More immediately, I’ll be in an all-day workshop starting tomorrow night, and through Sunday. It’s a SERC workshop on the role two-year colleges like NOVA play in geoscience education. Between that and packing, this might be the last you hear from me for a while.

Blogging will likely be light around here for the next two months as I’m flitting about. I’ll do my best to log on and post some travelogues when I can, but I can’t promise too much. When I have phone service (will my iPhone work in Turkey?), I can offer a series of short posts to my Twitter account. Beyond that, you’re on your own!

1453, by Roger Crowley

So,  I think I dropped a hint here that I was planning to travel to Turkey this summer. Lily and I will be there from the end of June until the middle of July. (And I’ll be going back in October for the Tectonic Crossroads conference.) In preparation for a trip like this, I enjoy doing some research and reading some books. There are a lot of books about Turkey, and I’ve got at least two more I want to get through before I go, but I wanted to tell you about one that I just finished.

It’s called 1453, and the author is Roger Crowley. The book is a nonfiction account of the battle for Constantinople in the titular year, just one among many attempts by Muslims to conquer this Christian enclave in their part of the world. Situated on a triangle of land between the Bosporus and the inlet called the “Golden Horn,” Constantinople has fended off many attacks over the years. In a position to control commerce between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, the city was a fabled jewel: it inspired some men’s covetousness and other men’s wholehearted defense.

Image modified from the NASA image (public domain) here

The geography of Constantinople protected it from assault on two sides due to sea (Sea of Marmara side + Golden Horn side), and the third side (facing west) was protected by several layers of defense: a moat, an outer wall, and a taller inner wall. For a thousand years, they had defended their city from outside aggressors. In the year 1453, the Byzantine empire (a.k.a. the “Greeks”) was defending Constantinople from the imperial advance of the Ottoman Empire (a.k.a. the “Turks”). Constantine XI was leader of the Byzantines; Mehmet II was sultan of the Ottomans. After a two-month siege, the Ottomans triumphed, and the city was sacked; its inhabitants enslaved or slaughtered. The city itself was transformed: The Cathedral of St. Sophia was remade as a Muslim mosque, the Hagia Sophia. The name “Constantinople” was replaced with “Islambol,” which became “Istanbul” with time.

It was a battle between two “great” world religions, with “great” in this case meaning “big.” Both prayed to their respective ideas of God, beseeching the deity that their cause triumph over their enemies’. Every time something positive happened to advance their cause, they sang the praises of their chosen deity. Of course, when things didn’t go their way, they did not infer that their deity had forsaken them (or that no deities were involved), but that they only needed to pray harder.

Powered by their deep religious faiths, they cut one another’s heads off, chopped one another into pieces, impaled one another on pikes. In addition, the raiding Muslims speared babies in Constantinople and raped women. (If it were Christians were to have attacked a Muslim stronghold instead, it seems clear that the “morals” would have led to similar depravity and atrocity in the other direction. That didn’t happen in 1453, since the Muslim army was all men, and the residents of Constantinople were mixed men, women, and children. For example, the Fourth Crusade, a group of warrior Christians, sacked Constantinople in 1204: this Christian attack on other Christians was the only previous occasion when the city had fallen to invaders. )

I came away from this book:

1. …thinking “wow” — all this shit played out more than 650 years ago, and Constantinople was already a thousand years old when that happened! History is deep in some parts of the world. Even “civilized” history…
2. …thinking “wow” — the siege of Constantinople is an epic saga, far more compelling than Troy. The back and forth, the ingenuity, the personalities involved in the 1453 battle: they are epic. This book would make an amazing movie. Read it to find out how Mehmet gets his boats into the Golden Horn, or how Constantine protects the city walls from Mehmet’s cannonfire. How does the Pope react to the Ottoman threat? How to the Genoese merchants on the north shore of the Golden Horn attempt to remain neutral while secretly pulling for Constantine? How close did Mehmet come to giving up?  I won’t reveal this wild stuff here but it’s a roller coaster ride.
3. …thinking that Roger Crowley is an exceptionally talented writer, if he can make me care about these people, this event, lost in the netherworld between 10,000 BCE and the present. This man can write. What else has he written? Bring them to me!
4. …thinking that I am very motivated to visit some of the critical locales mentioned in this book, where the battle for Constantinople took historical turns one way and the other. I’ll be in Istanbul a month from now; Stay tuned.
5. …thinking how astonishing it is that people continue to think that their religion is the right one, in spite of being surrounded by other people thinking the same dang thing about different deities. This tribal thinking (“my people are the chosen ones; your people are infidels”) leads to tremendous suffering and bloodshed: people who don’t think the same things you do are by definition no longer people, and may be treated as non-human. [begin rant] I am reminded of a quote from Steven Weinberg: “With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil—that takes religion.” For thousands of years, our species has fought itself with tribal self-righteousness. It’s always “us” and “them,” and religion is the most frequently-adopted tribal cloak. In their own minds, religion absolves its practitioners from their atrocities;  by supplanting reason, it leads to unspeakable acts and horrific history. I am impressed by those religious individuals who think critically about their faith’s offerings, and apply the theological precepts with a modicum of common sense and an independent sense of ethics. But many religious people disappoint me deeply, with a series of actions that wreck the world along with any notion of consistency or moral “high ground.”  After reading about the battle for Constantinople, or experiencing the 9/11 attacks, or following the daily news, I can’t help but think the world would be a better place with a purely natural sense of ethics, and supernatural moral frameworks banished to the dustbin of thought. “Hypothesis not supported.” [end of rant]

If you are at all into history, or at all into Turkey, read 1453. As a rule, I’m not into history, but I am very grateful that fellow Turkey traveler Greg Willis recommended this book to me. In return, I loaned him Orhan Pamuk’s Istanbul: Memories and the City. I look forward to offering my review of that tome in the weeks to come.