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Questions for study or discussion

Dr. Anne McClanan and Dr. Evan Freeman

https://smarthistory.org/hagia-sophia-as-a-mosque/

Thinking about context

  • What circumstances prompted the conversion of Hagia Sophia to a mosque?
  • Why might the Ottomans have converted Hagia Sophia into a mosque?

Thinking about this monument

  • What concrete steps were taken to convert Hagia Sophia to a mosque?

 

  • How did the functions of Hagia Sophia change or stay the same when it was converted to a mosque?

Thinking about images and text

  • Why did the Ottomans cover the Byzantine mosaics inside Hagia Sophia?
  • What new roles did text play in the Ottoman redecoration of Hagia Sophia?
Minbar, interior of Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, 532-37 (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) <https://flic.kr/p/nrbzbD>

Thinking about art history

  • What do art historians mean when they speak about the “afterlife” of an artwork or monument?
  • How does Hagia Sophia illustrate the exchange of artistic traditions across cultures?

 

 

Watch the video.

<https://youtu.be/r6383ZDXB0Q>

License

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Smarthistory Guide to Byzantine Art Copyright © 2021 by Dr. William Allen; Dr. Magdalene Breidenthal; Dr. Andrew Casper; Dr. Paroma Chatterjee; Dr. Allen Farber; Dr. Ariel Fein; Dr. Evan Freeman; Dr. Beth Harris; Kalliroe Linardou; Dr. Elizabeth Macaulay; Kathleen Maxwell; Dr. Anne McClanan; Dr. Robert G. Ousterhout; Dr. Nancy Ross; Dr. Courtney Tomaselli; Dr. Nicolette S. Trahoulia; Dr. Alicia Walker; and Dr. Steven Zucker is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.