Hagia Sophia, one of the most prominent monuments taking place in Istanbul, Turkey, hosts millions of visitors every year. It became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ayasofya has a long and diverse histoy that represents the changes that occurred throughout the history of Istanbul. From its construction in the 6th century until the Ottoman era in 1453, Hagia Sophia was originally used as a church. During the Ottoman period, it was converted into a mosque.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Due to its historical background, and passing through the hands of various cultures, both the exterior and interior of Hagia Sophia behold an incredible mixture of Islamic, Catholic, Paganist, and Orthodox architecture and art. This is what makes the Hagia Sophia so special, differentiating it from all the other mosques and churches that can be found in Istanbul.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The magnificent Hagia Sophia was built at the behest of the Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian in 537 BC and was then known as the Church of Holy Wisdom. <\/p>\n
Hagia Sophia is a remarkable testament to the ingenuity of Eastern Roman architects, built to a unique design for the time. A new chapter in its history began when Mehmed II had it converted into a mosque and painted over the golden mosaics and frescoes with Islamic motifs and patterns. Some of them have since been uncovered again and have survived for centuries under layers of plaster. The emperor also added massive panes of beautifully crafted calligraphy. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6520,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-destnation"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gateofistanbul.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gateofistanbul.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gateofistanbul.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gateofistanbul.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gateofistanbul.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3078"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/gateofistanbul.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6521,"href":"https:\/\/gateofistanbul.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3078\/revisions\/6521"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gateofistanbul.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gateofistanbul.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gateofistanbul.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gateofistanbul.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}