Archaeology Magazine - September 1951 - 41

that Trdat followed at least one precedent.
The timber of which only the end can be seen in Figure i o is wrapped in a lead sheathing and penetrates
the full thickness of the rib. The lead sheathing proves
that it was intended as a permanent member, and the
presence of plaster patches at a comparable position in
the mosaic decorating the remaining sixth century ribs
( Figure i i ) further proves that similar timbers were
embedded in the ribs of the second dome. Trdat consequently seems to have inserted these ties, which were
doubtless locked together in the middle of the window
openings so as to form a continuous ring, after the manner of ties which in the tenth century may still have remained in the sixth century ribs.
A sample of the wood in this tie, now in a tinder-like
condition, has been identified by B. Francis Kukachka, wood technologist with the U. S. Forest
Products Laboratory, as white oak. We may be sure
that the ties were not properly seasoned before their
insertion, for this one was a victim of a particular kind
of fungus which attacks, the specialists report, only the
living tree. Perhaps it should be remarked that all efforts to resuscitate the mycelium mass, or abortive
sporophore, which destroyed the wood in the tenth century have thus far proved unsuccessful.
Whether consistent or not, Trdat' s repair was a good
one, for though most of the mosaics remaining in the
western semidome were shaken down by the latest serious earthquake to affect the building, in 1894, his extravagantly reinforced arch still stands after nearly a
thousand years.

Fig. 12. Hagia Sophia. Bulge in the northeast
pendentive from the cornice directly below (photograph by F. G. Allen and H. H. Kreider).

eastern arch, rebuilt by Isidorus the Younger
The in the sixth century as a prelude to his construction
of the present dome, stood for eight hundred years before it fell again, in 1346 (or 1347), as a result of
injuries caused by an earthquake in 1344. On this
occasion, when the declining Byzantine empire was
in serious political and financial straits, the repairs
were carried out, apparently, by Astras and Faciolatus, and an Italian, Giovanni Peralta, and were
financed with contributions raised in Russia by a
Greek priest from Constantinople. An unwieldy
problem confronted these architects, and they appear to have botched it.
The gap that occurs in the original setting line
indicates that thirteen ribs had to be replaced in a
segment extending unequal distances from the center of the eastern arch (Figure 7) . The repair begins, at one end, near the crown of the southern
arch
and smoothly continues the curve of the sixth
Fig. 13. Hagia Sophia. Eastern arch of the dome conAt the other end it reaches only as
taining exceptionally large bricks, small fragments of them, century segment.
far as the center of the northeast pendentive, and
and stray sizes.

Autumn 1951

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Archaeology Magazine - September 1951

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Archaeology Magazine - September 1951
