Study and restoration of the Zeyrek Camii in Istanbul

This article reports on the 12th-c. Church of the Pantokrator (now called the Zeyrek Camii), which was the core of the Pantokrator Monastery and the most significant monument in Constantinople from the Middle Byzantine period. There was a program of study and restoration on the church from 1997-2005. Mosaic decoration was discovered in the reveals of three apse windows in the middle of three aligned churches. The central window was opened and its mosaic was cleaned by conservators from the Central Conservation Laboratory of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. The mosaic pattern is a rinceau or plant scroll with heart-shaped leaves and apparently flowers, executed in gold against a light blue ground. A similar mosaic was found in the north window of the north church. Sections of mosaic also survive in the lateral two arches of the middle church’s apse window, but these have not yet been uncovered. Thousands of other glass tesserae were found in a rubble fill, and they apparently date from the destruction of the church after an earthquake in 1766 and a subsequent restoration. Many tesserae have one round edge, and their average size is 0.7-0.8 cm on a side, and 0.4-0.75 cm thick.