The history and ideology of preservation increasingly arouse interest in parallel with the rising importance of the cultural heritage and preserving it. Hagia Sophia is one of the monuments that comes to mind immediately when the cultural heritage of Turkey is mentioned. Both as a Byzantine and an Ottoman ecclesiastical and imperial monument, Hagia Sophia bears political and religious importance besides its artistic and architectural uniqueness, 1500 years after its construction. This study aims to expose the change in the official attitudes towards preserving antiquities in the transition period from the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic, through examining the ideological and physical approaches to Hagia Sophia. In the Late Ottoman Period important leaps about two important components of cultural life, museology and archeology, were realized in terms of both preservation and exposition of the antiquities, besides the political, economical and judicial changes. Thus, the emergence of museological and archeological studies and related legislations in the Late Ottoman Empire Period and their development in the Early Republican Period are examined chronologically in this study. The reasons behind the changes in the usage of Hagia Sophia, from a church to a mosque and then to a museum, are researched in order to understand the ideology of the adaptive re-use and its results while evaluating the impact and meaning of the afterlives. The selected time period is very critical because the changes occurring in the social and political life of the country, together with the change of the ruling power, paved the way for the present situation in Turkey.

This dissertation aims to investigate the hybrid facture of one of the most influential buildings of architectural history, Hagia Sophia, which has been a source of wonder and awe since its construction in the sixth century. Since the first temple erected on that site; old-new, future-past, forgetting-remembering are all intertwined in the imaginative act of initiating and its continuous making as re-makings that manifest the building as a palimpsest-in-the-becoming. Its originality lies not any of its chronological beginnings but its diachronic facture of interweaved historical, mythical and architectural strata of its remakings through appropriation. The conquest of Constantinople, a central moment in Hagia Sophia's macro-history, marked the beginning of the diachronic appropriation of the site and building elements that are of Byzantine origin. By employing the south turret as the site of the minaret, the appropriation became a twofold strategy of preservation and innovation that ensured sacredness and continuity. An intertwined narrative was factured by complementing the material appropriation with deliberately constructed mythopoeic and visual re-makings of Byzantine texts and representations. Evliya Celebi's tale in which an Ottoman architect was said to have laid the foundations of a minaret preceding the conquest and the Dusseldorf manuscript, an idiosyncratic version of Buondelmonti's Liber Insularum Archipelagi are the two accounts through which this study aims to open-up a multi-directional dialogue to explore the appropriation program of Hagia Sophia. Within this framework, a critical revisiting of the concepts of facture, making, palimpsest, original, spolia and their respective relationships will provide clues to tackle the transformation process the building is going through currently. In a way, its hybrid facture will act as a paradigmatic model for the future undertakings. / Master of Science / This dissertation aims to investigate the hybrid facture of one of the most influential buildings of architectural history, Hagia Sophia, which has been a source of wonder and awe since its construction in the sixth century. Since the first temple erected on that site; old-new, future-past, forgetting-remembering are all intertwined in the imaginative act of initiating and its continuous making as re-makings that manifest the building as a palimpsest-in-the-becoming. Its originality lies not any of its chronological beginnings but its diachronic facture of interweaved historical, mythical and architectural strata of its remakings through appropriation. The conquest of Constantinople, a central moment in Hagia Sophia's macro-history, marked the beginning of the diachronic appropriation of the site and building elements that are of Byzantine origin. By employing the south turret as the site of the minaret, the appropriation became a twofold strategy of preservation and innovation that ensured sacredness and continuity. An intertwined narrative was factured by complementing the material appropriation with deliberately constructed mythopoeic and visual re-makings of Byzantine texts and representations. Evliya Celebi's tale in which an Ottoman architect was said to have laid the foundations of a minaret preceding the conquest and the Dusseldorf manuscript, an idiosyncratic version of Buondelmonti's Liber Insularum Archipelagi are the two accounts through which this study aims to open-up a multi-directional dialogue to explore the appropriation program of Hagia Sophia. Within this framework, a critical revisiting of the concepts of facture, making, palimpsest, original, spolia and their respective relationships will provide clues to tackle the transformation process the building is going through currently. In a way, its hybrid facture will act as a paradigmatic model for the future undertakings.

The aim of this study was to assess the cultural heritage implications of converting Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, Turkey from a museum into a mosque in July 2020. Through analysing cultural heritage management as a tool that could support the building of nationalism, this thesis explores the links between nationalism and cultural heritage. Discourse Analysis was used to answer the research question, facilitating research on the selected texts and the respective political discourses. To study the conversion of Hagia Sophia into a mosque, information was collected through the Internet, with an emphasis on interviews, articles, and tweets from Turkish government officials during the period from the reconversion of the monument to the present day. Discourse analysis shows that in our case, cultural heritage management was used within the context of emotional politics and the pursuit of political objectives of the ruling party with the side effect of disempowering subgroups of the Turkish society whose sense of history and place is not compatible with the prevailing discourse.

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The following dissertation considers the main aspects of trade during each phase of Minoan development from its beginnings in Early Minoan times (3500 BC) until the end of Minoan period in 1430 BC. The work concentrates largely on the commodities exchanged, the development of transportation and perceived trade routes as well as the role of the palaces once they were established. The theories on the Minoan Thalassocracy and colonisation are also discussed. The evidence used is mainly archaeological, which is able to trace the movement of non-perishable materials such as pottery and metals. Reference is also made to contemporary Near Eastern texts and art, as well as the Minoan Linear A and Mycenaean Linear B documents. / Biblical and Ancient Studies / M.A. (Ancient History)

The following dissertation considers the main aspects of trade during each phase of Minoan development from its beginnings in Early Minoan times (3500 BC) until the end of Minoan period in 1430 BC. The work concentrates largely on the commodities exchanged, the development of transportation and perceived trade routes as well as the role of the palaces once they were established. The theories on the Minoan Thalassocracy and colonisation are also discussed. The evidence used is mainly archaeological, which is able to trace the movement of non-perishable materials such as pottery and metals. Reference is also made to contemporary Near Eastern texts and art, as well as the Minoan Linear A and Mycenaean Linear B documents. / Biblical and Ancient Studies / M.A. (Ancient History)