Showing posts with label Byzantine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Byzantine. Show all posts
A part of the Greek-built Byzantine wall on Sulukule Street in the Topkapı neighbourhood of Constantinople, has fallen. Reports state that police and firefighters attended the scene. While there were no dead or injured in the incident, police inspected around the area where the crash occurred.


The Theodosian Walls (Tεῖχος Θεοδοσιακόν), were built in the 5th century, meaning they are over 1,500 years old. Despite the historic value, Turkey has made little efforts to restore and preserve them.

Turkey has a long history of letting the rich history it inherited when it invaded the Byzantine Empire ruin, in the hope of removing most traces of Greek civilisation that is not of financial value, like the Hagia Sophia Cathedral that is the second most visited site in Turkey.

The collapse of the wall comes as the Hagia Sophia Church in Pontus on Turkey’s eastern Black Sea coast, which first turned into a museum and then later a mosque, is now being buried in concrete and ancient hagiographies covered, as reported by Greek City Times yesterday.

The Hagia Sophia Church was built in 1250. After its conversion into a mosque in 2013, 800-year-old hagiographies were covered and some of them even destroyed.

Meanwhile, the famous Hagia Sophia Church in Constantinople is also falling into disrepair as Turkish authorities even refuse to give the ancient cathedral a new coat of paint. So long as it remains of touristic value, a minimum of restoration will be made to the cathedral to appease international visitors.
Byzantine amphora found by swimmer at Cretan beach 


An ancient amphora was found by a man swimming at a hotel beach in the village of Kokkini Hani, Heraklion, Crete. The man immediately informed the central port authorities of Heraklion and the amphora was transferred to the Department of Underwater Archaeology of Crete. Experts say that the amphora was from the Byzantine period, probably dating to between the 12th and 13th centuries.

Excavations at Palace of Odysseus to resume in Ithaca


“The Prime Minister has assured us that the excavations at the Palace of Odysseus will resume,” the mayor of Ithaca, Dionysis Stanitsas, announced in an interview with the Athens-Macedonian News Agency. The mayor expected that the prime minister’s visit will benefit the island. “We had a meeting and discussed the problems that need to be solved over the next period,” he said and added: “We discussed the issue of excavations in Ithaca where the palace of Odysseus was located.”Stanitsas stressed, “that the University of Ioannina carried out excavations until 2009. Then they stopped. The Prime Minister assured us that he would help the Ministry of Culture with extraordinary funding to continue the excavations.”