Ways in/out of a monastery

We moved in and out of the Monastery of St. Catherine with little difficulty, sometimes ducking in through the 'official' front entrance (at least, sanctioned for tourists between 9-12), and at other times asking for Father Nilus at the priviledged side door. The original entrance in the fortress wall was blocked up with stones at some point in the monastery's history...

One of the fascinating details in the topographical icons is the monk peering from a window high in the wall and the basket which he lowers from the same window. Most of the time, this detail is shown in the context of local bedouins receiving their daily ration of bread from the monks. But evidently, the rope and basket also served as the means of access to the monastery for visitors as well! Several pilgrim accounts explain their mode of transportation. I thought I'd include an exerpt from Alexandre Dumas' Impressions of Travel (New York, 1839), which describes his visit to Sinai in 1830 in the company of two other Frenchmen. Below are my own pictures of the windlass used to haul up guests and/or food and provisions during this period, and of the window and trapdoor from the outside of the wall.






"The walls of the Monastery, at length, succeeded those of the garden. After inexpressible toil and fatigue, we had reached the haven which the devotion of Christians has preserved for those who travel over the ocean of sand, and the mountains of rock... A glance, however, convinced us that even yet our journey was not quite finished. We could see a wall of sufficient height and length, but its sheer and precipitous side was unbroken....

At this instant, a window, sheltered by an awning, was opened high in the wall over our heads, and a Greek monk dressed in black, ...cautiously appeared, to examine what sort of people he had to deal with."

[Dumas and his companions had letters of introduction, but still waited anxiously as the Sinai monks consulted their references. Dumas' anticipation and worry that they would be turned back to Cairo, from where they'd just come, without seeing the monastery rang a familiar note after our own trip. By the time we were dragging our bags through the dust to the monastery, we weren't at all sure that the guesthouse and its lodging really existed!]

"...After a short conference, they lowered the rope, to which, this time, a hook was attached. Our Arabs unloaded the camels and fastened our luggage in parcels to the hook, and this being successively drawn up and lowered, our effects soon disappeared...

On inquiring... I found that this was the custom of the monks, to guard against any surprise; and that our own ascent would take place in the same manner, by the same conveyance, ...the moment that our packages were arranged.

And so it was. The rope descended with a stick across the end, on which saddle we were to ride up....

Mayer, as officer of marines, led the way. He straddled the stick in the same manner as painters of houses balance themselves in Paris over the heads of passers-by, and as soon as he signified that he was ready, he rose with dignity into the air. When he reached the window, an athletic brother drew him in and deposited him in a place of security. We followed with like success."

Topographical Icons

Although the purpose of my blog is to share my own pictures and stories from my recent trip, I want to include a few of the images that were the beginning point of this journey! The Monastery of St. Catherine at Sinai formed the centerpiece of my trip, and my anticipation was largely influenced by a series of late-Byzantine icons and prints representing the Sinai monastery and its surrounding landscape. The images were a kind of 'official' iconography of the pilgrimage site that developed in the last quarter of the 16th century; one of the earliest examples is the print by Fontana below (published in Venice). And Fontana's image is thought to be the source for at least two icons of Sinai painted by El Greco. The iconography esp. circulated among Cretan painters for whatever reason (there did happen to be a dependancy of the Sinai Monastery in Candia, today's Iraklion). It was also reproduced in numerous illustrations for pilgrimage accounts to Sinai.

I'm curious about the differences among the images and their audiences; my argument was that the iconography turned each viewer into a pilgrim of sorts. A sequence of sites and meaning is presented that has to be taken in slowly, as you identify each one. Fontana's print is labeled, for example, while the Orthodox 'paper icons' that are produced by the 17th and 18th centuries using the same imagery coded the landscape with numbers. A legend with explanatory text was printed separately. Viewers, like pilgrims to the actual site of Sinai, could explore the chapels and other places commemorating the biblical past. So, 'virtual' pilgrimage in the days before digital imaging or moving pictures, internet or cinema. I suppose the representation of Moses receiving the tablets of the law on top of Sinai or of St. Catherine being deposited by angels on the neighboring mountain could be thought of as 'flashbacks...'

Engraving of Sinai Monastery and Landscape (1570) Giovanni Battista Fontana



Woodcut of Sinai Monastery and Landscape (1688) Nikodimos Rokou

Icon of Sinai Monastery and Landscape (early 18th C) Iacovos Moskos

More steps...

A few additional shots from the Path of Steps. These were also stunning views, although, after a while, rocks are rocks are rocks!

St. Stephen's Gate; the second arch we encountered on the way down.

Here the steps run diagonally through the photo.
As we reached the bottom of the path, it was harder to distinguish
steps from the general jumble of rocks.

The Path of Steps as seen from the monastery.

The Path of Steps

Our route down to the monastery from the top of Mount Sinai was by the traditional 'Path of Steps,' or 'Stairs of Repentance.' Archaeology suggests that these granite steps have been in place since about the 6th century. We were told that there are 3,000 in sum. We didn't bother counting! The route back to the monastery also included several chapels and two stone arches that have been erected above the stairs. Supposedly, these were spots where pilgrims had to make confession on their way up. Just past the one archway, we found all these little piles of stones set up on the surrounding rocks. Perhaps markers of these prayers and confessions?

Carissa and I watch our feet as we begin down the mountain.

The Valley of Elijah, almost immediately below the final ascent.
Some of the tourists must have slept out here rather than on the peak.

Dave and I sitting on large pieces of the unweathered, Sinai granite.

One of the stone archs over the Path of Steps.

A chapel dedicated to the Theotokos, or Mother of God, en route to the monastery.

A glimpse of our distant goal, the Monastery of St. Catherine,
at the foot of the mountain.

Now you see them; now you don't...

A group of hikers (tourists? pilgrims?) composed of military men from Texas, I think a platoon or squadron or whatever they're called, passed us as we made our way down from the top of Mt. Sinai. I took these photos looking back up at the Path of Steps, and I love they way the two pictures illustrate how rocky the landscape was. You can see the switchbacks with the guys spread out along the trail, but when they aren't in the picture, the steps are impossible to pick out! Kind of like our own journeys; the steps right in front of our feet are evident. But it is too hard to see the direction of the path looking toward the future, and even the purpose or meaning of the steps we've just taken remains invisible.

Mount Sinai

The most memorable part of my trip was probably our early-morning climb up Mt. Sinai... Father Nilus had advised us to begin at 4 (AM, that is) in order to make it to the peak of the mountain by sunrise. The preferred route up was by the camel path. I mentioned in this in one of my earlier blogs on St. Catherine's, as the path runs in front of the monastery and then meanders up the side of the mountain at a more leisurely pace than the famous path of steps (the more direct and vertical route).

Going by the camel path simply meant that we had to refuse offers of taking camels every few hundred feet! The bedouins were already up and moving about in the pre-dawn darkness (we discovered that they and everyone else must sleep in the hot, mid-afternoon... we did too). One young bedouin was esp. insistant that climbing the mountain by foot was just too much effort. "Walk - 3 hours, no good. Camel - 1 hour, good." And he demonstrated his point by panting. "Uhf, uhf! Walking - no good." We thought it was good enough for us. Although it proved slightly unnerving to find camels looming unexpectedly out of the night. We side-stepped. The camel droppings on the path were unavoidable.


Starting our climb in the wee hours of the morning also meant that we had an extraordinary look at the stars in the Sinai desert. No light pollution. We took several water breaks on our hike, as well as to nibble on Luna bars for breakfast and dried fruit and pretzels, or just to catch our breath. But I also called several stops to check out the night sky above us. There were a few other small groups of people hiking, and as we or they stopped for breaks, we would catch up with one another. It made for some comraderie in the dark.

The mountain got more populated as we reached the top! Evidently, there were tourists who'd taken the camels, and some who slept overnight on the peak. We passed a number of little huts with coffee, tea, and other drinks or snacks. There were also traders with the same rocks and polished stones that we'd seen in front of the monastery. Why you would buy a rock on top of the mountain in order to carry it all the way back down with you, I don't know.

It was slowly getting lighter as we neared the top of Sinai. We stopped a little more frequently to take pictures (plus catch our breath). The last bit was a vertical climb, with wedges of rock as stairs. 750 was the estimated number I heard. Then, we'd done it! We had reached the top of the mountain, and carefully navigated our way around other tourists and the stone chapels to take in the view. And the sunrise. We were just in time...

A Korean church group on the peak who sang a hymn
as the sun rose; it was beautiful.

The Chapel of Moses on the peak of Mt. Sinai.

A first shadow cast by the morning sun.

The sunrise.

Two tired hikers; I was the third!

Looking back at the final ascent... The stairs begin just past the huts
and follow the outline of the shadow up to the niche in the mountain slope.

Our "inside" tour

Father Nilus was our official 'tour guide' of sorts... I mentioned him briefly in my last post. He was my contact at the Sinai monastery and extremely gracious/generous with his time and our ignorance. I don't think he expected us, even though he was recommended by Father Justin to myself and my advisor. (Rob has worked more closely with Father Justin, who is the librarian at St. Catherine's. I was sorry we didn't get to meet him since he was on his own pilgrimage to Lindisfarne during the dates of my research trip... although Father Nilus showed us the library, it was not his area of expertise, and I wasn't able to see some of the prints and engravings I'd hope to look at.)

But even if I didn't get to do all the 'research' I was expecting during my trip, the opportunities to see the inner life of the monastery was a real treat. We got to explore several of the buildings in/around the basilica and Father Nilus carefully explained different aspects of monastery's history, ancient and contemporary.

Looking at parts of the monastery's old olive press;
the new press is located in the gardens near our guesthouse accommodations.

Inside the fortress walls! These were originally constructed in the 6th century,
but were strengthened and made higher by Napoleon's troops.

A view of the basilica and other rooftops from inside the monastery.

St. Catherine's

Carissa and I are standing with the regular crowd of pilgrims, tourists, and local bedouins. We are at the side entrance to the monatery; the steps at our left descend to the 'front' gate that is used during visiting hours from 9-noon each day.

On our first evening at St. Catherine's monastery and guesthouse, I had gone up to the monastery to introduce myself to Father Nilus, who would be our contact and 'guide.' An Orthodox monk from Britain, he could explain things to us in English. We were priviledged to move in/out of the monastery during some of the unofficial hours, and attended some of the monastic services as well. At those times we used this little side door! The ancient entry to the monastery was also set into this northwest wall at one time; it was completely walled up by the 17th century or thereabouts for the protection of the monks from Arab raids (also an issue in the 4th and 5th century before the fortress was constructed). Otherwise, as on our first morning at Sinai, we and other visitors squeezed through the low entryway in the north/north-east wall. The main gravel road from the village and line of tourist shops runs in front of this wall, and it was where we'd usually see camels unloaded from their passengers and waiting the return trip.

Camels resting outside the monastery.

Here we are inside the monastery walls of St. Catherine's. The fortress walls and the monastery basilica date to the 6th century and were built by Justinian the Ist for the Sinai monks. The emperor's name, as well as that of his wife, Empress Theodora, appears in inscriptions in the ceiling rafters of the church. The architect, Stephanos Ailos, also signed his name. One of the most famous images in Early Byzantine Art is the Transfiguration mosaic in the apse of the monastery church. Unfortuntately, it was entirely covered in scaffolding during our visit (it is undergoing necessary restoration to keep it intact). And I realize now that I have no pictures of the church interior. Maybe we weren't supposed to take any.

We had an interesting conversation with Father Nilus in which he pointed out the transformation of liturgical objects, like icons, when they are placed in museums. He felt they became lifeless, something unlike themselves when used/seen in their original context. And because we were able to 'participate' in one or two of the services in the church (Father Nilus had given us instructions on the appropriate times to stand or stay seated; as Protestants, we certainly couldn't take the Eucharist), I got my first exposure to the sequences of the Great Liturgy, and some of the interplay between icons, hanging lamps and processing candles, iconostasis and altar. It is a very different perception of the role of images than what a museum-goer finds isolated behind glass and labeled for individual consumption.

All that said, I was thrilled to see many of the historic icons from the Sinai collection in their new icon museum. It is very nicely layed out with state-of-the-art exhibition cases; quite a contrast to the few icons still displayed in the dark narthex of the church (we took our flashlights the second time). Dave and Carissa were patient with my exclamations at seeing X or Y... the 12th-century icon of the Heavenly Ladder or the pre-Iconoclastic icons of the Christ Pantokrator and the Virgin and Child Enthroned, for example.

The location of the monastery basilica marks the spot where Moses encountered God in the burning bush (Exodus 3:1-5 and following). The chapel behind the apse is dedicated to the relics of the bush. But live and green outside the apse is the supposed descendant of the burning bush. To its credit, it is said to be a rare species on the Sinai peninsula and cuttings from the bush refuse to grow elsewhere. I will suspend judgment. Although I'm fascinated with the medieval cult of relics, it is still smthg. to wrap my post-enlightenment head around. More on this later, when I describe the charnel house.

St. Catherine's Icon Museum inside the monastery.

Tourists listen to a re-cap of Moses and the Burning Bush
while standing beside its still-green descendant.

The Burning Bush at the Sinai Monastery.

The monastery basilica (6th C) and a later bell-tower.

The Monastery Guesthouse

Following the melodrama of my last post, perhaps you are just as relieved to see the Sinai guesthouse and accommodations! It was really lovely. We had comfortable rooms, and usually retired here for siesta after lunch. There was never much going on between 1.30-4.30/5 pm. The staff were friendly, and we frequented the coffeeshop in the courtyard and took advantage of the shade to read or write postcards. Of course, we became regulars.



The green door on the left is the room that Carissa and I shared; Dave was two doors further down. One of gardeners/caretakers always gave us cut roses in the afternoon while he was watering. At least, he gave roses to Carissa and me. I don't think Dave ever got one!

A partial view of the surrounding mountains and landscape.

Egypt - its taxis

As a preface to any descriptions of my time at the Sinai monastery, I have to explain some of our experiences with taxis in Egypt. It is completely appropriate; most pilgrim accounts spend time embellishing the dangers and effort demanded by their trip to said holy site. I suspect that the sanctity of the destination was enhanced by the perils of getting there... or perhaps more accurately, the piety of the pilgrim was made more evident by his or her labors spent!


Carissa and I arrived in Cairo late afternoon. It was a short flight from Istanbul, although we bumbled around trying to figure out where to purchase our tourist visas (itty bitty stamps at a kiosk marked 'bank'), and had our first encounter w/ the norms of baksheesh (tipping) in the airport bathrooms. We didn't have long to wait for my brother David to arrive. And it was delightful to welcome another familiar face on my trip. =)

However, from the relative calm of the airport facilities, we would be thrown out into the wilds of Cairo! I speak of its highways and traffic flow. I don't think I ever got used to it. Eventually I learned just to sit back and enjoy the craziness... I wish I had a snapshot from our taxi rides; they are permanently engrained in my mind's eye as my first impressions of Cairo and of the Sinai Peninsula.

Once Dave had come through customs and the passport check, our first goal was to locate an ATM and procure some local Egyptian pounds. (The ATM situation is another story entirely). Then, step two, find a taxi to take us to the Karvin Hotel where I had booked rooms for a single night. We would be back at the airport the next morning in order to fly to Sharm El Sheikh. Thing is, getting from the airports to our various accomodations had never been clearly defined. There didn't seem to be a reliable system of public transportation besides the taxi cabs. My Rough Guide warned us against the wiles of 'touts' who would try to charge us rediculous amounts due to the extra fees that taxis had to pay in order to enter the airport and solicit its emerging tourists. Sure enough, as soon as we left the glass doors of the lounge, we had several offers of assistance; "do you need a taxi?" Each time we asked the price of a ride to Heliopolis, we were told 50/60 pounds, and we insisted that it was too expensive. The touts looked doubious, trying to instill the conviction in us that we wouldn't find any cheaper options.

We triumphed, however! As soon as we saw a regular black and white taxi cab pulling up to drop off a woman and her young son, we assigned Dave the task of going over to the driver and trying to negotiate the price we wanted (15-20 Egyptian pounds). The driver nodded at 'Heliopolis' and we all piled in. Literally, piled in. Carissa and I had smaller suitcases and could stash them between us on the back seat. Dave somehow fit himself, 6'4", and his larger suitcase into the front seat. It wasn't until we were outside of the airport precincts that the driver paused by the side of the road to re-adjust luggage, placing Dave's bag in the overhead rack. There wasn't anything to hold it there; occasionally the driver reached up to make sure we still had everything with us. He was very jolly, and knew a few words of English. Enough to joke around with us as we careened through the unknown streets and neighborhoods. He didn't seem to know where our hotel was, exactly. So our first stop must have been his local office (near the Four Seasons), where he called the number on my printed itinerary. Then we were off once more.

Priceless moments include the time when our driver began slowing down while still on the highway. He'd noticed red brake lights ahead of us, and another driver a lane or so over (the lanes were never exactly observed, and kept changing) was also stopping. They conferred about the traffic jam in front of us. Then began backing up (this was a 4-lane highway, at least; see the previous note about lanes). All the oncoming traffic was also slowing down, and started to back up as well. I have never before driven backwards on a highway in sync with multiple lanes of traffic!!! We were simply headed to the first exit, where we could take an alternate route.

Then there was the donkey cart -- our cheerful driver decided was moving slowly enough that he could still make a left turn in front of it. Carissa was cringing beside me. "Don't hit the donkeys!" may not have communicated across the language barrier. We didn't.

And finally, we'd made it to our hotel (I wouldn't recommend the hotel; nice service but the rooms left smthg. to be desired. It would also take another day until Carissa and I figured out that we had to turn on the water heaters, those white plastic cylindars suspended next to the shower, for any hot water to come out). We decided to take the hotel car back to the airport next morning. But I think we ended up paying our taxi driver a tip equal to the price we'd bargained down! The driver asked for an additional 5 pounds to reimburse a fee that the airport security had demanded from him. We had $10, and I offered this to him, indicating that he should keep the change (we were pretty pleased with ourselves for just getting to the intended destination, and for escaping the airport touts). We didn't really know what the exchange rate was at this point. $1 is about equilvalent to 5.7 Egyptian pounds. Oh, well. You do the math; we figured it out later.


Our encounters with native taxis weren't over! We still had to make our way from the Sharm El Sheikh airport, after we'd landed on the Sinai Pensinsula, 2 and 1/2 hours inland to the Monastery and Village of St. Catherine. I had gotten a few tips from my advisor about how to do this. But it was rather sketchy altogether.

It seemed like a good idea to first get to the town of Sharm El Sheikh from the airport, less negotiating all at once. The other people on our flight all had tour attendants waving little signs at them, or hotel shuttles, and disappeared from the parking lot all too quickly. We didn't hassle the touts too much this time around, but paid something in between the suggested price and our sense of the 'local' rates. Our destination--the Iberotel Palace. It was a luxury hotel mentioned in my guidebook and it had a bank adjacent to it. We needed to withdraw more funds from the ATM in order to pay a taxi for the ride out to St. Catherine's! The hotel was a smart move. The staff at the desk were helpful; they both gave us an estimate of what the drive out to the monastery should cost and called a taxi to the hotel, making sure that the driver would not over-charge us. We provided baksheesh with our thanks.

One problem was that in the hurry to find a taxi and make sure we were headed to the Sinai Monastery, none of us had time to purchase water. Dave had about half the pint bottle given to each of us on the airplane w/ breakfast. We didn't have enough Arabic phrases in hand to attempt an explanation to the new taxi driver that we wanted to stop and buy more water. So, we rationed the pint bottle. It was a long 2 and 1/2 hours. Long, and hot. There wasn't much between us and the blazing sun, and the few inches of air below the hot tin roof of the taxi also heated up pretty quickly. No air-conditioning. In fact, the two taxis we'd ridden in so far did an amazing job of holding together and still functioning! To improve our confidence of reaching the monastery before experiencing heat stroke or having to wander by foot in the desert sands, the driver stopped to fiddle with the brakes (this was my impression), Carissa saw a camel carcass on the side of the road (not a good omen), and we totally switched drivers at one point. Our first driver assured us that this new fellow was a "good driver" and a friend. We were clueless as to the reason for this change of personnel. Driver no. two was a chain-smoker, which didn't make the heat or thirst any more bearable.

Still, we passed one mile marker after another and the occasional signboard pointing toward St. Catherine's Monastery. We were going in the right direction, and there weren't any other roads to get lost on. It was disconcerting to pull over at the military check-points; we would haul out our passports, and the driver would explain our destination (and that we were good pilgrims, I'm sure). Then we were slowly waved through, driving carefully over the speed bumps and past the booth with the automatic rifle pointed at us.

After a while, I lost track of the hills of red rock and oceans of sand. It all looked the same.

I really think it was a miracle that we reached the Sinai Monastery. Once we were dropped off and paid our driver (and driver no. two wanted an extra 50 pounds for his trouble), we had to convince the guards at the checkpoint below the monastery that we were expected and that we did indeed have rooms in the guesthouse. "You stay at the monastery?" They seemd incredulous that this was possible. "How many days?" My schedule also appeared to be suspicious. "6 days?!" I guess they weren't sure what we planned to do with ourselves... after a few days, we weren't either =) We got a thorough search through our luggage, and after the psychological hazing (I was no longer positive that I had ever talked to the guesthouse by phone, and was afraid we'd find the monastery walls closed and looming above us with no vacancy), we went on past the guardhouse and coffee/souvenir shop. We dragged our suitcases perhaps 10 minutes on a dusty, winding road. It felt like another 2 and 1/2 hours! The little wheels meant for macadam don't do so well on gravel and camel dung. But when we go closer, there was indeed a monastery guesthouse, and rooms waiting for us. It was a little oasis in the midst of that hot, dry place; green and cool and refreshing. We could take hot showers (after turning on the water heaters), and nap beneath air conditioning units.


The road leading up to the Monastery of St. Catherine at Sinai; you can see the line of shops and then the curve of road on the left that takes one back around to the guesthouse and gardens just before reaching the monastery (mostly hidden behind trees).

Night falls over Hagia Sophia

I will leave you at this stage with a last view of Hagia Sophia... I'm quite proud of this one; I think it out-does the cover of my Lonely Planet guidebook (which has a simulated reflection of the minarets and dome of the Blue Mosque). My reflection is genuine! The hotel where Hans was staying had a great viewpoint of both the Hagia Sophia and Blue Mosque from its roof-top terrace. To keep my camera steady for night shots of the monuments, I first attempted to balance it on the cast-iron railing. The brick air-conditioning/fan vents worked much better; and had collected a little puddle of water on the top that, positioned just so, did the trick.

The Orient Express

My week in Istanbul was full of adventures; I haven't shared nearly all of them (like our visit to the Mevlevi Monastery and its Whirling Dervishes, or venturing into the Turkish Baths at Cemberlitas)...

But there remained places to go, things to see! Carissa and were heading off to Cairo, where we would connect with my brother Dave en route to the Monastery of St. Catherine. Hans traveled other parts of Turkey (including some other ancient monasteries in the region of Cappadocia) with college friends of his who arrived the day that Carissa and I said our farewell. For our last dinner, we chose a picturesque spot in the bustling train station, the restaurant of the Orient Express. The food wasn't noticeably better or worse than what we'd eaten elsewhere, but location was everything. The train station was the end of the line for the Orient Express, a service beginning in Paris which shuttled many of the upper classes of Europe to their exotic destination in old 'Stamboul' in the late 19th/early 20th century. It became the setting for Agatha Christie's mystery, "Murder on the Orient Express." And posters from the 1974 film decorated all available wall surfaces of the restaurant.

Dining room of the Oriental Express Restaurant.

The track and train cars are only dimly visible through the window!

The Bosphorus Ferry

The ferry was one mode of transportation that we did navigate successfully, and fully enjoyed =) After having sought out the requisite Byzantine churches, our ferry ride up and down the Bosphorus straight was a day 'off.' It was a wonderful way both to view the city from the water and to escape it for a short while. We got to see the continent of Europe on one side, the continent of Asia on the other, and passed summer houses, small towns and scattered fishing villages as we moved slowly toward the Black Sea. At the narrowest part of the straight, we saw a school of porpoises. They accompanied us breifly, but didn't seem to be as concerned to reach the Black Sea.

The ferries at Eminonu, our starting point.

The fortress of Europe, where Mehmet the Conquerer gathered his forces to take
Constantinople in 1453. There is another fortress standing on the Asian shore.



The remains of a Genoese castle near the Black Sea.
This was our final stop on the route before turning around to head back.

The castle ruinous...

We took the ferry all the way to Anadolu Kavagi on the Asian shore of the Bosphorus. There was about a three hour wait until the departure of the return ferry, so most of us hiked up the hill to an overlook with the tumbledown remains of another castle, Genoese in origin. It was a beautiful day, although the clouds built up to quite a thunderstorm by the time we got back to Istanbul that evening.

Myself, Carissa, and Hans at the overlook.

The village of Anadolu Kavagi. We avoided the generic retaurants for lunch,
and instead shared a large waffle with ice-cream and tried apple tea
(which was on the menu everywhere).
We made one other stop at Kanlica, in order to taste their famous yogurt.

A bevvy of small fishing boats, some probably out and about for pleasure, like us...

Other Byzantine spaces

Besides the Kariye Camii, we also tried finding a few other Byzantine monasteries and churches. With some we were successful, others not so much.

On the same day as our visit to the Kariye, we went to the Fethiye Camii, or Church of the Pammakaristos (the Virgin Most Joyful). It has also been turned into an official museum, and was another later Byzantine foundation intended as a funerary chapel. I was struck both here and at the Church of the Chora by the intimacy of the architecture; it is on a very human scale, with the mosaics much closer to one in person than I expected from having only viewed them in published reproductions.

The exterior of the Fethiye Camii.
In contrast to the Kariye, we were the only tourists at this church!

Surviving mosaics in the Fethiye Camii, or Pammakaristos.

These churches are located out in the western districts of Istanbul, near the Theodosian wall. It was an adventure setting out to find each. We were armed only with our maps in the Lonely Planet (we actually had three different guidebooks to compare notes on, which came in useful) and our very slight competence in Turkish. This seemed to work fine when we were exploring by foot. In fact, I'm quite proud of how sucessful we were! It still required some guess-work, because street signs were few and far between. What we couldn't seem to master was the bus system...

I had checked our intended route with the hotel staff the night before, but even with friendly advice along the way, my itinerary went awry. We never did figure out which buses would have accepted the tickets that we bought from a newsstand across the street. We kept trying to wave the slips of paper at each bus we boarded, while the bus driver kept pointing us to an attendant with his change booth, both of them shaking their heads and saying 'money' as they refused our pre-paid tickets. One bus driver finally took pity on our confusion and simply let us ride. He also made sure to point out the direction toward the Kariye Muzesi as we got off! After this initial encounter with the buses, we should have known better than to attempt them later in the day. However, after seeing the Kariye and wandering around until we'd found the Fethiye Camii, I still wanted to go along the Theodosian walls from Edirnekapi down to the Yedikule Gate. I was hoping to see the ruins of the Studios monastery as well.

We didn't quite make it. We understood that some kind of public transport called a dolmus (a fixed-route taxi) left from approximately the area where the Kariye Musezi was, and should have ended up at the southernmost stretch of the walls. But when we questioned the drivers hanging about what we thought were the dolmuses (dolmi?), they directed us to the closest bus stop. Certainly, our questions were limited to pointing along the wall and repeating the name of our destination... it might have helped to be able to communicate with a little more depth than this. We waited a good while for the necessary bus to show up. Once or twice, Hans suggested just walking (which would have been a good idea). But, we stuck it out and got on the bus headed to Zetinburnu. This time we were at least ready with change instead of our worthless paper tickets. And we saw a bit of the Theodosian walls before our bus veered off into the unknown.

It turns out, Zeytinburnu is NOT the same as Yedikule. There is probably some bus that connects the two. By the time we reached the last stop, we were done with public transport. The tram line went directly from Zeytinburnu to Sultanahmet (on the street right outside our hotel), and this familiar route 'home' seemed like our best option.

It was another afternoon when we tracked down the Zeyrek Camii (by foot!). This is still quite a large, functioning mosque, although half of the building is empty and fallen into disuse. It was constructed in the 12th century by the Empress Irene and her husband, John II Comnenus. The typikon, or foundation document, for the monastic complex is available in translation; I've read it more than once for various classes. It provides some fascinating details about the internal workings of a Byzantine church. There isn't much left to see, however.

We were allowed into the church by the caretaker. We'd circled the block and were the only obvious tourists standing around in front of the building. So this older fellow came over to let us in; he knew just the necessary English phrases to point out some of the marble decoration, and to explain how old the church was and who built it.

Floor plan of the Zeyrek Camii, or Church of the Pantokrator.

The southern church (on the far right), was the first to be built under Irene, and is that dedicated to Christ Pantokrator. This is what still functions as a mosque today. Then, John II added the church on the north dedicated to the Theotokos, with a chapel to the archangel Michael squeezed between the two structures. The chapel was where the emperor intended to be buried. According to our guide, his tomb is still beneath the floor... I would suppose that the imperial sarcophagus ended up with several others at the Archaeological Museum.

The Church of the Theotokos and St. Michael chapel had both been converted into a madrasa in conjunction with the mosque. This was closed at some point, and they are empty, echoing spaces that serve for roosting pigeons and not much else. Pretty dismal. There are more fragmentary remains in the Church of the Pantokrator, including part of the floor inlay. The caretaker pulled back a little wooden trapdoor under the rug during his recital of historic information, and we got a quick glimpse of centaurs and vegetal scrolls.

The Kariye Camii

The Kariye Camii, or Church of the Savior in Chora, is one of the best Byzantine monuments for puns upon sacred space/place. Not only its name, but prominent inscriptions and the visual program inside the church engage in this exact conceptual playfulness.

The church was built sometime in the 12th century, but restored in the early 14th century by Theodore Metochites (logothete, or controller of the treasury, in the Byzantine court). Its mosaics and fresco painting in the funerary chapel for Metochites are among the most complete cycles of imagery surviving in Istanbul, and superb examples of later Byzantine art (no, no, I'm not at all biased...). Metochites, of course, puts himself in a donation mosaic right above the central doorway as one moves from the inner narthex to the space of the church. My photo was blurry, as I hadn't figured out the niceties of aperture settings, etc. when taking pictures without flash. In both this mosaic, however, depicting a Christ enthroned, and in the Pantokrator mosaic placed above the doorway from the outer narthex, Christ is inscribed "The Chora of the living" (H XWPA TWN ZWNTWN - so much for Latin capitals trying to replace the Greek!).


"Chora" is a word that is often translated "place," "land," or even "country." In this context, it is more appropriate to think of "chora" as "dwelling-place," more literally perhaps as a "container." I like the play of the last option in conjunction with the large wine vessels that are crowded into the pendentive to the left of Christ. These come from the miracle at Cana (the wedding at which water was turned into wine). The wine opposite the feeding of the 5,ooo and baskets of bread on the right also work to anticipate the elements of the Eucharist which would be offered inside the church.

Back to "chora..." The visual program of Metochites' church treats the infancy of Christ and of the Virgin, and seems to create significant parallels in its representation of male/female throughout. In the naos (the central space of the church), Christ and the Virgin are paired across from each other on the eastern wall, thus on either side of the apse. Again, Christ is inscribed as "the chora of the living." It is actually a quote from Psalm 116, v. 9. The Virgin, or Theotokos, is inscribed with "chora of the achoretou," a contradiction that emphasizes the miraculous nature of the Incarnation. Translated, we get roughly "the container of the uncontainable." You can't see the whole inscription here, but you at least get the word "chora" (XWPA).

In clever juxaposition to the large, figural mosaics at the front of the church is the mosaic of the Dormition, the death of the Virgin as commonly represented in Byzantine art, over the door/entrance on the west wall. This would be the very last image you'd see on your way out of the church sanctuary.


The disciples have all been flown in from the various corners of the world to witness the Virgin's death, and Christ now carries her soul (the small, child-size figure) to heaven. Wrapped in swaddling clothes, Mary's soul held by Christ are figural counterpoint to the Mother and child opposite.

Container and the uncontainable communicate the mysteries and the promise of human salvation, in particular the hope of reaching paradise, or the "dwelling-place of the living." Psalm 116 is especially relevant: "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints" (v. 15). And the insistant inscription of self in this promise follows in v. 16, "O Lord, truly I am your servant; I am your servant, the son of your maidservant." While the scene of the Dormition reminded every Orthodox of their own mortality, the Virgin's example was meant to safeguard the passage of all souls. Because Theodore Metochites attached his funerary chapel and burial place to the side of the Chora Monastery, I'm sure the iconography had personal resonance as well.



The funerary chapel is decorated in fresco painting rather than mosaic; most splendid is the apse image at its far end. Here, the Anastasis provides the Byzantine version of Christ's resurrection, but the scene is of Christ forcibly rescuing Adam and Eve from Hades. So Christ's resurrection is therefore depicted as the first-fruits and promise of resurrection for all humanity (Adam and Eve as our representative parents).


The first Orthodox service I ever attended happened to be a funeral this summer for a friend and colleague. At the moment in the service where friends and family could come forward to say their goodbyes, it was an icon of the Anastasis that stood beside the coffin.

Topkapi tidbits

It is always difficult to pick and choose among the many adventures and sites/sights of a trip, and hard to know how much to say or what to leave out! Although the focus of my research and someday dissertation is Byzantine (more or less), we explored other parts of Istanbuls and its history as well. Carissa and I went to the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts, which was very informative (a good survey of Islamic history in the Near East). On our first full day after Hans had joined us, we spent the morning in the Topkapi Palace and museums.



This is the law court within the second courtyard of the Topkapi Palace; the Ottoman palace was rather organized and governed by strict court protocol. If you had business with the sultan, this is where you could present your case or petition to be heard. The sultan would listen in on occasion from behind a grilled screen; I guess the tricky part was that you never knew whether or not he was really there... The actual audience chamber for meeting with the sultan is just inside the third court. But the sultan received foreign ambassadors or important officials in total silence, so negotiating was still limited to the sultan's go-betweens.

The interior of the council chamber, or law court, with its grilled window.

A closer view of some of the elaborate palace ornamentation.

There was a lot to take in; we walked through a room of relics associated with the prophet Muhammad, and the dimly-lit treasury (I was looking for the Byz. relic of John the Baptist's arm, but was sorely disappointed... it must no longer be on display!). We went ahead and paid extra for the Harem tour. I have lots of pictures of the gorgeous ceramic tiles from various rooms and pavilions, but I don't think my photos did them justice.

The courtyard of the Valide Sultan (mother of the sultan).

Based on the themes of its painted decor, this is called "The Room of Vegetables."



A window of the Circumcision Pavilion.

Two more

Yet another photo of the Galata Tower; I couldn't resist! We walked around Beyoglu for a while looking for a good place to eat. There were lots of options, although the first restaurant we tried (an old British prison just below the tower) wasn't open.



Getting up to the tower had required a steep up-hill climb. There was more hill behind it, but this was pretty much the only route to the Istiklal Cad, a street with numerous eateries. I forget the name of the place we found, but we were all satisfied with our dinner. I had fish; the whole thing!

Views from the Galata Tower

This shot of Hans and myself at the top of the Galata Tower turned out nicely, but you can't see how precarious our situation was. The walkway around the top was rather narrow, although with a sturdy iron railing. The pressing issue was crowd control... there should have been signs to suggest a one-way route for viewing as people made their way around the catwalk. There weren't any. So tourists were squeezing past one another in both directions, and of course pausing here and there to take pictures of the water and cityscape. I tried to be especially careful so that I didn't loose my new camera to the narrow streets below!

A view of Sultanahmet from above.

Hagia Irene and Hagia Sophia as seen from the Galata tower.

Looking back at the Galata Bridge with the skyline of Istanbul
(and its many mosques and minarets).

Galata - The Bridge, the Tower, and a general Orientation

The Galata Tower was built in the mid-14th century as part of the Genoese quarters across the Golden Horn from Constantinople. It still provides an urban marker that can be seen nearly anywhere. I have lots of pictures of the tower to prove it! But climbing up the tower (the elevator will take you to the 8th floor, and only two flights remain after that) also results in great views of the city.

We made our way to the Beyoglu neighborhood in order to climb the tower on our third day in Istanbul. I had been exploring most of Sultanahmet with my friend Carissa, another graduate student (she works on 20th century American women writers - not art history, but we share interest in themes of sacred geography and the history of Christianity, esp. monastic culture and early saints lives). On Weds., my friend Hans arrived, and we would have a couple days with his company before we then took off for Egypt and he traveled other parts of Turkey (like Cappadocia) with some of his college friends.


Here, Hans and Carissa take in the view of the water (with all its ferries and shipping activity). The bridge between Eminonu and Beyoglu was also a great spot for fishing... There were men and boys all up and down the bridge with their fishing poles. As we got closer to the opposite shore, we could smell the local fish market! But these men were probably interested in their own lunch/dinner rather than sale at the market.

The Mosaic Museum

When Hans arrived, we spent our first whole day wandering the grounds and museums of the Topkapi Palace, which the Ottoman sultans plunked down right on top of the Byzantine imperial palaces and administrative center. Therefore, there isn't much left of the Byzantine Great Palace. It's been the subject of complicated reconstructions, but without much basis in archaeology as the Topkapi is also an historic site worthy of preservation (and with gorgeous ceramic tiles decorating its various kiosks and pavilions).

Still, at one point there was official digging in the area behind the Blue Mosque, and thus some of the floor mosaics (6th century) belonging to the Great Palace were uncovered. They've been restored and put on display in a little museum on location. Carissa and I had to wander several times through the neighborhood bazaar before we found the entrance. It is tricky enough getting past carpet-sellers and the other merchants one time through. If you turn around and re-trace your steps, you are doomed! Turkish salesmen are very persuasive. And they know exactly the English vocabulary necessary to entice their customers.

As to our goal, the Mosaic Museum has several large sections of the palace mosaics displayed as if in situ (horizonally). There are smaller fragments placed vertically with explanatory wall text. Most of these are self-contained vignettes of pastoral life, with animals, birds, plants, and the occasional classizing figure or architectural setting thrown in.

The mosaics are quite stunning. I've included one detail of a leaf-face from the vegetal scrolls in the border because it's just so amazing.

Istanbul Cats

This photo was also taken at the Archaeological Museum; note the feline curled up exactly at center and sunning itself beneath the imperial standard...

There were many cats in Istanbul. I'm definitely a cat person, and Carissa has a soft spot for any four-footed beastie. Neither of us knew how prophetic her words were when she pounced on a small, black and white cat just outside our hotel lobby. "Ooooh, an Istanbul kitty! Kristine, take a picture of me with my first Istanbul kitty!"

There would be many, many more... We could usually count on several cats at whichever restaurant we chose for dinner, especially frequenting the out-of-door tables and begging for extra meze tidbits. We watched the more daring who tried to sneak onto empty seats and then were chased away by the waiters. Several kitties became very recognizable around our hotel and the nearby carpet and souvenir shops. One of these even had a bell on its collar. For the most part, these pussies were strays, not pets. But they were friendly and seemed well-treated. Hans informed us about some story in the Koran in which a cat aids the prophet Mohammad, and so cats are supposedly favored throughout the Muslim world, unlike stray dogs. (Do correct me if I'm wrong) We were pleased with their company.

These two cats were stretched out for a full afternoon nap at the Hagia Sophia. Somehow they remained asleep as a number of tourists stopped to capture the photo op. I like the fact that both Carissa and I (and our cameras) show up in the window's reflection.

Our favorite moment with the Istanbul cats came at the conclusion of a liturgical service on Sunday morning. We'd looked up an Anglican church (one of the only Protestant congregations in the city) and appreciated their friendly coffee hour and a few familiar hymns. What none of us expected was the homily. The sermon text was Ephesians 6 (the spiritual armor part), but the priest directed his message at the danger of evil regimes in certain nations of the world, i.e., Iran. We felt as though we'd been suddenly transported to 19th-century, imperialist Britain. The reference to "lunatic pacifists" made us exchange sly glances. Rather than scripture, the basis for the homily seemed to be "common sense."

What lightened our tension and threw a bit of divine perspective into the experience was a cat who wandered into the aisles near the end of the liturgy. After a few enquiring meows she settled in the center aisle to commence washing herself. Of course, she started where most cats do in public. And she remained oblivious to the human activity going on around her until one of the white-robed attendants nearly stepped on her during the recessional! I think he was carefully trying to step around the cat, but her sudden retreat as she found priest and company bearing down upon her was entertaining. And a reminder of the significance demanded by what might otherwise be the mundane, more important than our grandiose and defensive self-posturing.

The Basilica Cistern

First things first; the 'Basilica Cistern' (so-called on its large tourist sign and quite overpriced at 10 turkish lira per person) is not a basilica. I don't know where it got that title. It is a cistern, and was built to hold water brought into the city by aqueducts.

Like Hagia Sophia, Justinian was the emperor responsible for its construction in the 6th century. Because Justinian is also the patron for the monastery church and fortress walls at Sinai, he ends up being an important figure in my research project. Another important guy is Pierre Gilles, or Petrus Gillius, who was a humanist scholar working in Constantinople during the early part of the 16th century and who re-discovered the cistern here. He did a lot of poking around with descriptions of the early Byzantine capital in hand. To find this spot, he paid attention to local stories of people pulling fresh water up from beneath the floorboards of their houses, with the occasional fish in their buckets as well. Okay, that's the Lonely Planet version of the story. Gillius himself mentions the cistern in a couple of texts (including Procopius) while emphasizing the general ignorance of the locals toward anything antique.

"The people had not the least suspicion of it, although they daily drew their water out of the wells that were sunk into it. By chance I went into a house where there was a way down to it and went aboard a little skiff. I discovered it after the master of the house lit some torches and rowed me here and there across through the pillars, which lay very deep in water. He was very intent upon catching his fish... and speared some of them by the light of the torches."

It sounds like the 'master of the house' knew about the cistern and a good use for it!

One of the curiousities worth seeing (two, actually) are the re-used Medusa heads that form bases for some of the supporting columns. These have been inverted and placed on their side, perhaps to dispel the mythic power of the carved figures. The giant heads were probably from a Greek or Roman temple.

I prided myself on my own powers of observation when I 'discovered' another one of these heads in the Archaeological Museum's sculpture garden (the collection of random artifacts that didn't make it inside the building, but are on display in the courtyard).

Procopius on Hagia Sophia

Procopius is the 6th century historian who describes Hagia Sophia and its construction under Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus. His account includes the oft-quoted dome 'suspended as if by a golden chain from heaven.'

From Procopius' De aedificiis:

"So the church has been made a spectacle of great beauty, stupendous to those who see it and altogether incredible to those who hear of it...

For it seems somehow not to be raised in a firm manner, but to soar aloft to the peril of those who are there; and yet it is supported with quite extraordinary firmness and security...

All of these elements, marvelously fitted together in mid-air, suspended from one another and reposing only on the parts adjacent to them, produce a unified and most remarkable harmony in the work, and yet do not allow the spectators to rest their gaze upon any one of them for a length of time, but each detail readily draws and attracts the eye to itself. Thus the vision constantly shifts round, and the beholders are quite unable to select any particular element which they might admire more than all the others."

Although closely cropped, this photo captures the light coming through the windows
in a way that suggests the de-materialization of structure.

I have to give credit here to my friend Hans, who joined Carissa and I mid-week
and took this picture from the upper galleries on his own visit to St. Sophia.

Hagia Sophia

This is a view of the narthex and imperial entrance to the church of St. Sophia. Having been trained to describe Hagia Sophia in the glowing words of Procopius, I found the actual space of the church rather under-whelming. But perhaps like the lost glories of Byzantium, my response has more to do with the hollow, shell-like experience of the church as museum.

Still impressive, the central doorway towers above its humble visitors. I could walk through it to reach the church beyond, although back in the day this door was restricted to the emperor's use. One of the Byzantine emperors is depicted in the mosaic above the cenral door, modeling the proper relationship of church and state, I suppose. At least from an ecclesiastical viewpoint! The galleries around the upper parts of the church have a few more surviving mosaics with the donation portraits of various emperors.

Mosaic with Christ enthroned and an emperor in proskynesis
(probably Leo VI, r. 886-912), Hagia Sophia





View through entrance and imperial doorway into Hagia Sophia





View of the church interior looking back toward the west entrance