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Category: Friendly Praise Archive

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	Chora Museum: Turkey 1/20s @ f/5.6, ISO 200, Nikkor 24-120, f/3.5-5.6 @ 24mm. The magnificent Chora Museum is an old Byzantine church, situated just inside the city walls.It is unparalleled in Turkey, and some would claim the world, for its beautiful frescos and mosaics. When the church was converted into a mosque after Constantinople fell to the Turks in 1453, instead of destroying the wonderful artwork (that was held as blasphemous by Muslims as it depicted so many people) they just covered it up. So these wonderful pristine examples of Byzantine art lay dormant over the centuries until 1948, when the Byzantine Institute of America began the painstaking work of revealing and restoring these hidden masterpieces. The result: The Chora Church, which had previously undergone a metamorphosis into the Kariye Camii, was reborn as the Chora (or Kariye) Museum. One of the delights of the church is that the arched ceilings are so near you can almost touch them. Rona L. Schwarz