Architecture, Byzantine; Byzantine Empire; Istanbul (Turkey) -- Description and travel; Justinian I, Emperor of the East, 483?-565
‘A very small church still stands within the present town, which, from
its mosaic floor and ceiling, may probably be of the date of St. Mark’s
at Venice, or rather of the Byzantine age.
‘Without the walls is a Roman aqueduct, which still supplies the town
with water from the neighbouring mountain.’—Ibid., p. 87. (L.)
[91] Nicomedia, now Ismid. (W.)
[92] Sangaris, now Sakarieh River. The bridge is now some distance from
the river, which has changed its course. (W.)
[93] Leake’s ‘Tour in Asia Minor,’ pp. 79, 80. (S.)
[94] Leake’s, ‘Tour in Asia Minor,’ pp. 180, 217. (S.)
[95] Leake, p. 215. (S.)
[96] Ibid., p. 214.
[97] ‘The Virgin of Jerusalem might exult in the temple erected by
her imperial votary on a most ungrateful spot, which afforded neither
ground nor materials to the architect,’ etc., etc.—Gibbon, ch. xl. (S.)
[98] See Appendix II.
[99] The church is octagonal. On the east side is an apse; on the
north the main entrance. On five sides there are small chapels, and on
the eighth probably a sixth. There is an inner octagon, which gives
the place some resemblance to that of the Dome of the Rock. The only
capital uncovered was of a debased Corinthian order. The church is
believed to have been built by Justinian _circa_ 533.
Plans by Sir C. W. Wilson are given in the _Quarterly Statement_ of the
Palestine Exploration Fund, 1873, p. 68.
The church is 70·0 inside east and west (inscribed circle of internal
octagon). East apse, 15·0 diameter; side chapels, 27·0 long inside,
with apses 9·0 diameter.
Said by Procopius to have been erected by the Emperor Zeno, not
earlier than 474, to the Blessed Virgin. He says also that Justinian,
after 529, built the external wall (9·0 thick) of the court, forming
a fortress 180 by 230, with chambers built against the wall inside.
One is 11·9 by 14·4 internally (_vide_ Plan).—‘Palestine Exploration
Memoirs,’ vol. ii., p. 189, 190. (L.)
[100] ‘The Vale of Palms by the shore of the Red Sea,’ Gibbon, ch.
xlii.; Stanley, ‘Sinai and Palestine,’ ed. 12, pp. 20, 85, 519. (S.)
[101] Full plans, details and descriptions of the fort and church built
by Justinian at the foot of J. Mûsa are given in the Ordnance Survey of
Sinai. (W.)
[102] Tell es Sultân and Tellûl Abu el ‘Aleik (Roman). Many traces
of ruins. The buildings do not appear to have been large or of fine
masonry. A pillar-shaft nine inches in diameter, of marble, and
fragments of cornices were found; also a capital of the rude Ionic
style common in Byzantine buildings, cut in limestone and much
weathered.
East and south-east there are extensive ruins on the way to
Erîha—mounds, small foundations, and portions of an aqueduct. They do
not appear to be of any great antiquity.
Jericho was inhabited in the fourth and fifth centuries, to which date
the buildings near the Tell are most probably to be ascribed.—See
‘Memoirs, Survey of Western Palestine,’ vol. iii., pp. 173, 223. (L.)
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