Earthquake damages Little Hagia Sophia in Istanbul
- When
- 1763
- Where
- Little Hagia Sophia (Küçük Ayasofya Camii), Istanbul
- Episodes
- 1
An earthquake in 1763 damaged the Little Hagia Sophia (Küçük Ayasofya Camii) in Istanbul, a sixth-century Byzantine church converted to a mosque. The damage remained unrepaired until 1831, when restoration was carried out under Sultan Mahmud II, alongside repairs for earthquake damage from 1648.
Episodes
Background and detail
Background. The Little Hagia Sophia mosque, formerly the Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus, is a former Greek Orthodox church in Constantinople, modern Istanbul. This Byzantine building with a central dome plan was erected in the sixth century by Justinian and was converted into a mosque during the Ottoman Empire.
Earthquake Damage of 1763. An earthquake in 1763 caused damage to the Little Hagia Sophia. The sources record this event alongside an earlier earthquake in 1648 that also damaged the structure, but neither passage specifies the month, day, or precise nature of the 1763 damage.
Aftermath and Repair. The damage caused by the earthquakes of 1648 and 1763 was not repaired until 1831, under the reign of Sultan Mahmud II. The building later suffered other damage from its use as housing for refugees during the Balkan Wars, though this falls outside the 1763 event itself.
People involved
- Mahmud II · Ottoman Sultan during whose reign the earthquake damage was repaired in 1831
Sources
- Little Hagia Sophia Wikipedia
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.